CHICAGO, IL – Illinois Institute of Technology’s (IIT) Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Project — sponsored by Chicago-based All Cell Technologies, LLC in collaboration with the City of Chicago, MicroSun Technologies, LLC, and ComEd — has moved into a new phase.

IIT returned a prototype vehicle to the Chicago Department of Fleet Management. DFM now will conduct four to six months of field testing of the vehicle under various conditions to evaluate the performance of the vehicle and improvement in fuel efficiency and emission reduction. The project is an effort to double the fuel efficiency and reduce emissions from the city’s fleet of hybrid vehicles. At the conclusion of the testing period, the city will evaluate the concept and its potential for mass implementation for plug-in conversion of other hybrid vehicles in the city’s fleet.

The vehicle’s Li-ion battery pack utilizes an IIT patented technology with a passive thermal management system using phase change material.