Each year every automotive manufacturer spends big money validating their imminent products under the most extreme cold weather conditions imaginable. Try to comprehend outside temperatures of -35 °C where a vehicle merely transforms into a bubble of life transporting passengers from one heated location to the next. Even the thickest cold weather clothing will not guarantee survival if you have a breakdown somewhere remote. The locations of these mystical automotive test facilities are in Finland and the timeframe around January each year.
Spare a thought for the test engineers that need to go and brave the cold for at least two weeks in order to prove that the hardware and software of the vehicles are able to robustly withstand the freezing grip of the cold. Nowhere in the flashy brochure at a dealership does it mention the numb limbs, ice particle filled noses or the ghost-like white world that the test engineers had to endure away from family and friends… You would think the engineers will eventually follow the Finish route of depression and alcohol abuse to cope with the stresses of working inside the Arctic Circle but you would be wrong. The engineering mind sees opportunities for fun in every situation… This brings me to the topic of the so-called “Heater Circuit”.
This circuit is normally a piece of private test road within a facility – mostly carved through the woods by heavy machinery during summer time. Come winter the dirt road will transform into a white icy path leading through the forest with snow banks either side – think WRC rally of Finland and you get the picture. Now this circuit is to be used for validation purposes only, driving sedately (with the vehicles’ heaters switched on, i.e. Heater Circuit) and in a controlled manner. After a couple of days circling this route every engineer starts thinking he is Mr. Loeb and the Heater Circuit becomes a rally stage… This has some serious consequences for man and machine. In my time in Europe several vehicles had to be rescued by a service crew and a tractor from snow banks, ditches and, if really unlucky, a tree.
Proving that an engineer was driving in a manner not conducive to testing is difficult and mishaps do happen on roads as slippery as sheets of ice. Rather than throwing a rule book at the engineer including a written warning, a better method of punishing was introduced: the guilty party had to buy “Hotshots” for every technician that helped with the recovery. Hotshots are a potent mix of alcohol served in shooter glasses which warms the drinker from the inside. A round of “hotshots” can dent the unfortunate engineer’s pocket by more than a €100! This penalty was usually all that was needed to ensure that the Heater Circuit stayed safe to use as a development tool rather than a race track.