GM opens Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona desert

General Motors and the U.S. Army officially opened GM’s new test facility in the southwest on the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground on July 22. The ceremony marked the end of most construction activity and the beginning of a cooperative arrangement hammered out two years ago. The agreement will provide GM with a suitable test facility following the closing of its longstanding Mesa Proving Ground.

In the agreement GM has leased a portion of the Yuma Proving Ground from the government on which several test roads and support facilities have been built. Both the Army and GM will have access to road systems they currently did not have on their property. A win – win for both groups.

GM sold the Mesa Proving Ground when residential and commercial building encroached on their heretofore rural area. As property values increased the value of the land the Proving Ground was sitting on became more valuable for development than for testing. GM’s rapid move from road testing to lab testing to using math based tools enabled the testing needs to be met with a much more modest size facility and limited test roads.

“This new facility meets several of our important product development needs,” said Ken Morris, executive director, Vehicle Integration, Proving Grounds and Performance Division. “We have a longer hot weather testing cycle, we have great partners with the Army and the city of Yuma, and we have a facility that will meet our needs in the years to come.”

The new facility will employ 75 engineers, technicians, and support staff, have 40 miles of roads, and cover 2400 acres of property on the Yuma site. The bulk of the work with be hot weather related testing, powertrain, ride and handling, and other vehicle development activities. Yuma has proved to be a perfect fit for GMs needs with a longer hot weather season than the Mesa area, relatively isolated and secure from photographers looking to get shots of the latest models being tested, and excellent support capabilities from the Yuma community.

The facility includes:

• 3.5-mile Circle Track (3 lanes)
• 1.4-mile Straight Track (2 to 3 lanes)
• 3.1-mile Ride Road (2 to 4 lanes)
• 1,000’ x 1,000’ Dynamics Pad
• Interior Noise Road
• Noise Pass-by Facility
• Misc. Grades
• 72,000-square-foot Main Building
• Garage (40 Hoists)
• Office (120 Residents/Visitors)
• Product Electronics/Instrumentation Lab
• Alignment/Tire Facilities
• Transmission Build Room
• Machine/Fab Shop
• Parts Crib
• Warehouse (14,000 square feet)
• Sundrella (40 hoists)
• Covered Parking
• Fuel Facility
• Car Wash
• Scale House / Ballast Station

General Motor Desert Proving Grounds Yuma Facts

• Located on the U.S. Army military proving ground and artillery range
• 2,400-acre site
• 24-acre building campus
• 98,000 square feet of building area
• 12 miles of perimeter security fencing
• 8 archeological sites
• 330,000 tons of aggregate rock crushed onsite
• 1.9 million cubic yards of excavate material
• 87 lane miles of 12-foot test tracks & roads using approximately 110,000 tons of asphalt and 4,000 cubic yards of concrete
• Waste water/fresh water treatment
• 2 Water Storage Tanks – total 300,000 gallons using 49,000 bolts
• 4 construction water wells at peak production – 1.5 million/gals per day with over 350 million gallons used in construction for pre-wetting and dust control.
• 52,000 cubic yards of concrete placement for site
• Almost 2,700 linear feet of concrete arch culverts were built using over 8,000 cubic yards of concrete.
• Saguaro cactus, wild burros, coyotes, wild bees and rattlesnakes
• Peak manpower during construction: 250-plus
• Over 450,000 man-hours to complete the project