Mercedes-Benz and Bosch have joined forces in Brazil to build a state-of-the-art vehicle test centre. In addition to trucks and buses, it will also be possible to test passenger cars, light commercial vehicles and motorcycles in the future. One groundbreaking aspect of the joint project is that the new facility will be made available to other manufacturers. The vehicle test centre is to be built on the existing Mercedes-Benz testing grounds in Iracemápolis (State of São Paulo).

Initial construction work on the new test centre will begin in the first half of 2020, and it is scheduled to open in 2021. Together, Mercedes-Benz and Bosch will invest 70 million Brazilian Real (around €15m/NZ$25.18m) in the centre. The new centre will focus on testing for the development of systems for vehicle safety and suspension control as well as systems for improved energy efficiency and for (semi-)automated driving.

The test centre includes five different areas with a total ground surface of 400,000 square metres. As part of the construction project, the number of test tracks in Iracemápolis will be increased from the present 16 to 21, and additional workshop and office space will also be created. 

In May 2018, the Daimler subsidiary Mercedes-Benz do Brasil opened Latin America‘s largest truck and bus testing centre in Iracemápoliso. On an area measuring some 1.3 million square metres, the world‘s largest producer of commercial vehicles is testing trucks and buses. Currently tests can be carried out on 16 different road surface profiles: with these it is possible to simulate the multitude of roadways on which vehicles operate throughout the world. For the recreation of these road profiles, a Mercedes-Benz Actros equipped with 260 sensors measured an extensive range of routes and roads and in doing so covered around 16,000 kilometres in less than four months. Mercedes-Benz do Brasil invested around €20m in the test centre, the design of which was modelled on the EVZ (Development and Testing Centre) in the Mercedes-Benz truck plant in Wörth.