Chrysler to deliver test fleet of PHEV pickup trucks to DTE Energy

Chrysler Group and US Department of Energy (DOE) partnership will provide Detroit based DTE Energy with ten demonstration fleet Ram 1500 plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) pickup trucks.

The Chrysler's delivery of Ram 1500 pickups are part of a national test fleet of 140 vehicles intended for use in the next three years in evaluating the customer usage, drive cycles, charging, thermal management, fuel economy, emissions and impact on the Detroit's electric grid.

Chrysler's advanced hybrid vehicle project senior manager Abdullah Bazzi said cities have been carefully selected to help the Chrysler Group collect a wide range of data.

"Working with a local energy partner like DTE that is in our backyard offers a great combination of suburban and rural driving, as well as ever-changing Michigan weather, is ideal as a test cycle for these vehicles," Bazzi said.

"The constant charging will allow us to measure the impact on battery life and charging efficiency."

The Ram 1500 PHEV features a liquid-cooled 12.9kWhr lithium ion battery pack, a 6.6 kilowatt (kW) on-board charger AC power generation of up to 6.6kW, directional charging, reverse power flow and full regenerative braking used to capture more energy.

The truck's front axle of the four-wheel-drive automatic transmission can be disconnected when not needed for enhancing the fuel economy, said company.

The company had begun the delivery of Ram 1500 PHEV trucks to the city of Yuma, Arizona, US in May 2011 to conduct thermal testing in the desert southwest.

The urban use of the truck will be tracked to measure battery performance and overall hybrid efficiency with the test fleet of pickups and also the military bases are the other use where vehicles will be able to provide power back to the electric grid.

The program is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 through the Transportation Electrification Initiative sponsored by the DOE.

The grant, adding up $48m from DOE and $49.4m from Chrysler Group was designed to develop the cost efficient vehicles for customers and also to satisfy safety concerns of daily travel without recharging.

Chrysler said that the company is developing a similar fleet of 25 Town & Country minivans with plug-in hybrid technology for demonstration and evaluation that are allocated to select cities next year.