No mention of grants/government incentives? Highly doubtful. The only electrics in our fleet are because the government pays for them in grants or rebates. We also paid almost $100k to install chargers. Public budgets can be read many ways...
Half a decade ago, a small town police force went Tesla...
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To use EVs for police work you'd have to work out the logistics.
You have to make sure you have enough cars available for all shifts including night duty. Some combination of ICE vehicles and charging times less that a full shift. Senior officers who have assigned vehicles spend some of their time at the police station, city hall or what have you where they could be charging.
Teslas are particularly good at keeping the occupants comfortable (whether it's hot or cold outside) when the vehicle is just sitting.
It's rare that I would charge my Tesla more than 3 hours a day (on a home level 2 system).
You have to make sure you have enough cars available for all shifts including night duty. Some combination of ICE vehicles and charging times less that a full shift. Senior officers who have assigned vehicles spend some of their time at the police station, city hall or what have you where they could be charging.
Teslas are particularly good at keeping the occupants comfortable (whether it's hot or cold outside) when the vehicle is just sitting.
It's rare that I would charge my Tesla more than 3 hours a day (on a home level 2 system).
If your department took them, sure. They would technically be department property then, though, if that's allowed in your state, not sure about CA.
What ultimately matters is:
1) Their budget did not increase.
2) They somehow hired 2 new cops.
Pretty clear cut that somehow they found extra money after trading cars.
A small town police force is almost an ideal use case for EV patrol vehicles. It's not like highway patrol use and often they're just running A/C for long stretches looking for traffic violations. And they essentially don't idle. They also don't have much scheduled maintenance.
It seems to be working. They’re everywhere here in the bigger cities and have been for awhile. You only see the old vans in small towns that are more than 50 miles from the hub, so I don’t see them in my town. I do think that’s due to range more than repurposing vans though. I don’t think the intention was to replace longer routes.
The media is pretty much agenda and advertising fee promoting.
AZjeff
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Funny don’t remember seeing a Tesla ad in mass media, ever.
Even highways patrol in more urban areas do they really exceed range of EV? I noticed Maine Fish and Game who drives really far distances using Ford Lightnings.
$2900/mo ICE vs. $600/mo EV = $2300 in savings per month per vehicle.
$2300/mo/vehicle x 12 mo/yr = $27,600/year/vehicle
$27.6K/vehicle/yr × 13 vehicles = $358,800/yr in fuel savings.
The article doesn't say, but perhaps the 13 EVs replaced 8 or 10 ICE cars to ensure readiness, in which case the fuel savings would be reduced.
Regardless, it looks there were legitimate savings incurred.
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The only time those gas powered vehicles are off, not uselessly idling, is when no one cares to turn them on.
If this is to state that officers are choosing to drive them over EVs, I doubt they get the choice in the matter what they’re assigned.
Possibly. Here in our county the guys are constantly running from one side of the county to the other on a busy night. Often times running lights and sirens, which would really chew through the battery. (No, not the lights/sirens, the much more aggressive accel and decel.) Even with regen, that type of driving would be pretty well into the friction brakes, so wasting energy. I'd have to ask one of the patrol guys, but I remember hearing that they usually drive between 2-300 miles a night. And we're not a big county by any stretch. (160 sq miles).
