First Self-Driving Car Test Track to Open in Hungary
The first-ever test track for self-driving cars has opened near Zalaegerszeg in southwestern Hungary.
ZalaZone is the first track to combine education, scientific research and commercial interests, thereby offering younger and university students, as well as professional engineers, the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the different aspects involved in the production, testing and trialing of automatic cars. Comprised of a laboratory, a simulator, test tracks and a lot more, this location will soon become the mecca of self-driving vehicles.
On the whole, the project is anticipated to bring the Hungarian economy up-to-date with international trends, thus paving the way for the whole of the European engineering sector. Accordingly, ZalaZone received a generous portion of the 800 billion HUF allocated to the engineering sector in the course of the current EU financial cycle, a sum that is expected to rise to as much as 30-40 billion HUF within the next year.
ZalaZone: Not only a production plant but the mecca of self-driving vehicles
The test track opened on May 20, 2019 and the ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who expressed a great deal of optimism for the rapidly-evolving industry. “The future has already begun, and it’s called the digital economy,” Orbán remarked in his opening speech, adding that “there is much more at stake than at a production plant.”
ZalaZone is not the first project to enrich the dynamically-growing vehicle-manufacturing sector in Hungary. As discussed by About Hungary, Jaguar Land Rover, the largest British automotive firm, opened a new, technical engineering office in Budapest just a few months ago. This was a clear step taken towards further advancing technological developments.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó welcomed the decision with a great deal of enthusiasm, commenting: “the decision by the UK’s largest automotive manufacturer to open a technical engineering office in Budapest reaffirms our foreign direct investment strategy and in particular our specific focus on high-quality automotive-related growth.
