To hear the quiet of new EVs, Honda brings on the wind

EAST LIBERTY, Ohio — Honda's new $124 million wind tunnel — a structure five years in the making — is coming online at a critical time. In the electric vehicle era, designers are under pressure to reduce aerodynamic drag so that battery-powered vehicles can drive farther on a charge.

The tunnel — an eighth of a mile long — will serve three functions for Honda: It will help designers create vehicles that slip through the air with less resistance; guide engineers on acoustic tuning to help reduce vehicle wind and road noise; and give the automaker's racing teams a dedicated wind tunnel to tweak competition vehicles.

But the advanced tunnel here, about 15 miles from Honda's sprawling plant in Marysville, Ohio, will also help reduce the automaker's product development bill.

No longer will Honda have to ship vehicles and engineers all over the country to use rented wind tunnels for testing.

"Those were the core reasons that got us thinking about the need for a wind tunnel in North America," said Chris Combs, Honda's wind tunnel strategy lead. "It just wasn't sustainable."

Of more urgency, he added: "The industry is changing. Aerodynamics and acoustics are critical components of the vehicles that are coming out, so we want to have the research that will be able to deliver those products."

Honda Motor Co. lags some of its competitors in developing battery-electric vehicles, but the new wind tunnel can help speed up product development.

Its acoustic tools are extensive. As many as 500 external microphones, and 54 inside a vehicle, will help engineers locate and isolate noise — a significant issue in developing EVs. With no engine or exhaust to mask noise, EVs have to be quieter than internal combustion vehicles. Engineers can collect data from testing on 2,700 channels, says Mike Unger, manager of the facility.

Honda says the new tunnel is one of the world's most advanced. A tour through the facility last month showed that it can do far more than blast wind at speeds of up to 190 mph.

During testing, vehicles sit on a turntable, or module, that contains either a five-belt rolling road — one belt under each tire and one under the center of the vehicle — or a wider single-belt system under the vehicle. The maximum speed of the belts is 193 mph.

Wind is created by a 6,700-hp, 5-megawatt General Electric motor spinning 12 carbon-fiber blades at 250 rpm. The fan sits in an aperture that is more than 26 feet in diameter. Engineers can change the characteristics of the wind by adjusting variable nozzles. The tunnel also has a heat exchanger that enables hot- and cold-weather testing.

Unger said Honda will make the tunnel available to universities and researchers when there is extra capacity. The facility has four secure bays designed to be used by outside parties.

Says Jim Keller, executive vice president of Honda North America Development and Manufacturing: "With this new facility, Honda is not simply investing in an advanced technology facility, but in the future of Honda engineers and other researchers who will work here."