The high-speed car technology ride Test Track at Walt Disney World's (Orlando, Florida) EPCOT theme park has been closed since June 17, 2024, for a retheming. Until now, Disney has been uncharacteristically closed-lipped about how the ride will be updated.
But this week, Disney finally announced the ride's re-opening date, July 22, 2025, as well as several aspects of the new ride, which will include include a new musical score, a road trip through a forest, and maybe even by the ocean, as well as a demonstration of LiDAR technology.
LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a technology used by many newer cars to detect objects on the road, utilizing lasers to target surfaces and measure the time it takes for reflected light to return. Autonomous vehicles utilize LiDAR, but so do conventional cars equipped with driver assistance warnings.
The ride will employ 29,000 light nodes and projection mapping to illustrate how a car uses LiDAR to scan its surroundings, including a near miss with an oncoming car, with LiDAR saving the day.
As Disney vlogger James Grosch at Guide2WDW.com says, this feels like a return to the original "edutainment" vibe of EPCOT, before it began pivoting to attractions featuring Disney characters.
As it always has, through two re-themings, the ride will conclude with a thrilling 65mph sprint on an outside track.
Previously:
• Tron Lightcycle/Run is the newest, coolest, and most oddly punctuated ride at Disney World
• I pick Star Tours over Smuggler's Run every time
• Disney's amazing new drone show
• Disney World's Haunted Mansion shut down after human remains spotted
• Families go broke for Disneyland: Are magical memories worth the financial misery?
