Ehra-Lessien

Ehra-Lessien is a municipality in the district of Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony, Germany.Volkswagen Group test trackVolkswagen Group owns a test track facility in Ehra-Lessien. The facility was built during the Cold War. The location was chosen since at the time, it was in a no-fly zone near the East German border, thus secret prototypes could be tested out of sight of potential rivals.The track is currently used by all Volkswagen Group subsidiaries and marques, such as Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, SEAT, Škoda, and Porsche.The facility features 96km of private tarmac, which includes a large variety of road surfaces and curves, used as test tracks to evaluate new and prototype vehicles. More significantly, there is a high speed circuit with a straight approximately 8.7km long. Although the straight portion of the track is perfectly flat and level for the entire length, when standing at one end of the straight you cannot see the far end due to the curvature of the Earth. Including banked corners at both ends of the circuit, allowing for a high entry and exit speed to and from the straight, and to increase average speed during the 20km lap, the straight is especially useful for determining vehicle top speed, and is one of the few places on earth that the Bugatti Veyron or the McLaren F1 can reach their top speed.