Ford developed a research Escape Plug-in Hybrid and delivered the first of a fleet of 20 to Southern California Edison (SCE) in December 2007 to begin road testing. This project was a collaboration aimed to explore the future of plug-in hybrids and evaluate how the vehicles might interact with the home and the utility's electrical grid. Some of the vehicles were evaluated "in typical customer settings", according to Ford. Ford also developed the first ever flexible-fuel plug-in hybrid SUV, which was delivered to the United States Department of Energy in June 2008. This plug-in version of the Escape Hybrid runs on gasoline or E85 and is also part of the demonstration fleet Ford developed in a partnership with Southern California Edison and the Electric Power Research Institute.