Photo: Nissan
While the Nissan Leaf has already found uses as a limo and taxi, the Portuguese have decided to use the Japanese EV as a squad car, for the country’s police force. It is a world first, and the National Director of the Portuguese Police force stated : "We pride ourselves in being the first police force in the world to incorporate cars with zero-emission technology as part of our 5,000 vehicle fleet [. . .] We want to continue reducing pollution in large urban centres and the introduction of the 100 per cent electric Nissan LEAF sets a new benchmark for our fleet."
A total of eight cars have been delivered fully kitted-up for duty, and they are set to enforce the law in some of Portugal’s more crowded cities without emitting a single gram of CO2. The Leaf will also be useful for low-speed sprints, where the torque of its electric motor will enable it to sprint off the line quickly and keep up with much faster motors, up to a speed of around 50 km/h (31 mph), when most cars will start pulling away.
We are curious to see how the eight Leafswill fare in this most difficult of duties. Hopefully, they will do well, so that the Portuguese police force will replace their entire 5000-strong fleet of vehicles with EVs, emitting less and less CO2, until, some time in the future, they will pollute no more.
We are curious to see how the eight Leafswill fare in this most difficult of duties. Hopefully, they will do well, so that the Portuguese police force will replace their entire 5000-strong fleet of vehicles with EVs, emitting less and less CO2, until, some time in the future, they will pollute no more.
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