Fiat Chrysler will arrange a fleet of up to 700 electric cars on trial basis to test vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, which will allow use of energy stored in car batteries by power grids to meet the power demands especially during high-demand hours.
FCA, last Thursday, agreed with Terna, Italy’s national grid operator, to jointly trial a technology that will inter relate electric cars with the grid using charging infrastructure.
Terna counts among the main electricity transmission grid operators in Europe, which is also managing the high voltage transmission grid in Italy with transmission lines of more than 74,000 km.
Luigi Ferraris, Terna’s CEO and General Manager, and Pietro Gorlier, the Chief Operating Officer of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) in EMEA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding for collaborating in joint testing of V2G technologies and sustainable mobility services.
In a recent move, FCA came putting efforts to merge with France’s Renault, which is pioneer in making electric vehicles. After failing to conclude that $35 billion deal successfully, FCA is to catch up on its own and that led the Italian-American carmaker to take its first steps into electricity mobility, which also has to spend 1.8 billion euros on emission certificates from Tesla this year.
The project is scheduled to be starting in coming few months, which will eventually to be reaching 600-700 test vehicles by 2021. The project will initially be starting with a full electric version of its Cinquecento mini car, which reportedly will be rolling off FCA’s production line in its plant in Mirafiori plant in Turin by the second quarter of 2020.
The same plant will also be used to construct V2G infrastructure as part of a feasibility study to launch an experimental demonstration fleet of cars connected to the grid via that V2G infrastructure, the two companies said in a statement.
