Chrysler Suspends Plug-In Fleet Test

Chrysler Group LLC has halted a year-old test of plug-in hybrid minivan and pickup trucks because their lithium-ion batteries are overheating.

The fleet of 109 pickups and 23 minivans has been idled to conduct a "battery-pack upgrade," according to Michael Duhaime, global director of electrified powertrain propulsion systems.

Chrysler says three of the plug-in pickups were damaged when their prototype 12.9-kWh batteries overheated. No one was injured, and the incidents occurred when the vehicle were unoccupied. The experimental batteries, which Chrysler describes as smaller and lighter than conventional lithium-ion architectures, were produced by Electrovaya Inc. in Mississauga, Ont.

Those units will be swapped out for a next-generation design that uses an unspecified different chemistry. Chrysler says the "complexity of the engineering solution" will determine how many vehicles are retrofitted.

The fleet, which has accumulated 1.3 million miles on roads in 20 states, achieved test fuel economy averages as high as 37 mpg for the pickups and 55 mpg for the minivans, according to the company.

Chrysler says the main objective of the next and final phase of the program will be to evaluate how plug-ins could reduce operating costs for commercial fleets by transferring power from their batteries to the grid.

The $123 million project, which has been jointly funded by Chrysler and the U.S. Dept. of Energy, is scheduled to end in 2014.