Testing investment: Mitsubishi Electric's all-weather dyno has designs on engine management system business - Dyno Testing - Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America; new dynamometer

This room and this entire half of the building are the real reason this new facility exists," says Mike DeLano. Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America's (MEAA) senior vice president Powertrain, Body and Chassis.

DeLano is trumpeting his company's 8,500 sq.ft. test chamber/all-weather dynamometer, nestled inside a new 18,000 sq.ft. R&D building in Northville Township, Mich. Headquartered in Mason, Ohio, MEAA has been supplying radios, navigation and DVD-based entertainment systems and electrical engine components to the North American auto industry since 1979.

In the facility's environmental dyno cell, Engine Management System Engineer Clint McDermott demonstrates a robotically driven Montero from which he is sampling exhaust gasses with a Hariba emissions analysis system.

"From here we have full control of the vehicle and its environment," McDermott says.

At the touch of a button, he can vary the chamber temperature from -40[degrees]F to +251[degrees]F, relative humidity from 0 to 90 percent and frontal vehicle wind speed from 0 to 75 mph. A bank of ultraviolet lights challenges A/C units by simulating sun load conditions that are one and one-half times the intensity of the sun.

"A/C plays a major role in the development of software for engine management systems," says McDermott. "We'll often be running a vehicle and sampling the emissions and we can make real-time changes to the software and run the same test again. The robot can be programmed to drive the vehicle exactly the same every time so we can quantity the change that we made."

The facility currently conducts emissions testing according to LEV, ULEV and plans to have SULEV capabilities installed and functioning this year. The dynos can absorb 300 hp continuously and 350 hp intermittently and the chamber can be set up to run both front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive vehicles.

"We also use the dyno to test our own components," DeLano says. "If we supply a part to an OEM spec'd system, we'll buy a production vehicle and put it through extensive testing to make sure that the part works properly."

He adds that the trend for North American manufacturers is to have one supplier for the entire engine management system. And the only way to get their business is to prove to the customer that MEAA can support that business. DeLano says that building the new support facility even before it shops for engine management business is proof of Mitsubishi's commitment to the North American Marketplace.

MEAA is one of 10 subsidiaries of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, a $27.4 billion a year global empire with operations in 35 countries that manufacture everything from toaster ovens to space satellites.

Mitsubishi developed the first in-car navigation system, the first active cruise control system and the first electric power steering. Through a consortium with Delco Electronics and MIT, it is bringing Artificial Retina Technology into the automobile.

"We can take a lot of that technology and put it into the vehicle," DeLano says.

Mitsubishi is also working on fuel cells for stationary installations like hospitals. "They'll pay for the technology up front," says DeLano, "So we can develop itas part of an industry that is paying you instead of just sinking money into automotive."

MEAA has revenues of nearly $700 million dollars annually, with manufacturing facilities in Mason, Ohio (starter! alternators), and Maysville, Kentucky (radios, ECUs and ignition coils). They supply Chrysler, Mitsubishi, GM, Suzuki. Ford, Nissan, Honda, lsuzu, Subaru and Volvo, and are Tier One suppliers to Delco, Delphi and Visteon.

Mitsubishi Electric also designs and builds all of its own testing equipment, a move that DeLano sees as a competitive advantage. Since the company hasn't cracked the North American testing market yet, the new facility only has one cell, but it has room and plans for more.

"It's like a variation of the chicken and the egg thing," DeLano says.

And he has hopes that this little nest egg will grow into a nice fat chicken.

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