Idaho Falls, Idaho – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has completed one million miles of plug-in hybrid electric testing (PHEV) through its advanced vehicle testing centre at its Idaho National Laboratory.

The tests demonstrate PHEV concepts in real-world usage by using fleet and public drivers; the one million test miles, along with more than 26,000 charging events, have been accumulated in on-road operations across the United States and Canada. More than 215 PHEVs, comprising 12 different PHEV models, have made up the test fleet to date.

The PHEV testing benchmarks vehicle performance by quantifying energy consumption, both in terms of gasoline and electricity, in a wide variety of operating conditions. The tests also demonstrate how environmental conditions such as air temperature and human behaviour influence the performance of PHEV technologies. By evaluating how the vehicles are driven and how they are charged, the laboratory is able to demonstrate vehicle energy consumption results and the potential effects on electric grids.

The effort involves more than 75 testing partners, including electric utilities, governments from city, county, state, federal and provincial levels, universities and colleges, clean-air agencies, private companies and other organizations.