Photo: FPD - Fremont Police Department
A little more than a year ago, the Fremont Police Department finished building the used Tesla Model S 85 it had purchased in late 2017 up to the specs required to function as a police patrol car.
The whole thing was part of the Electric Patrol Vehicle Pilot Program the FPD had in the works since 2015. After long talks and preparations with city officials, the police department was finally given the green light so, in March 2019, the now heavily modified electric was ready for testing.
Here's a selection of the modifications made to the Tesla: overhead light-bar and rear flashers, wheel well lights, headlight flashers, push-bumper, prisoner partition, prisoner seat, center equipment console, armor door panels for the two front doors - in total, $35,000 worth of mods were made or added to the car.
According to the report published yesterday, the initial trials - carried out at the Alameda County Emergency Vehicle Operations track yielded more than satisfactory results. The EV reportedly "exceeded expectations and performance objectives", which meant the Model S 85 was ready for field testing.
The purpose of the test was to gauge the viability of a wide-spread adoption of electric vehicles for police use as well as the operational and cost benefits this would bring. Obviously, the results would be compared to those of a standard, gas-powered car currently used by law enforcers.
Numbers after one year of fieldwork show that the only downside of an EV continues to be its higher acquisition price. However, with a much lower annual energy/fuel cost ($1,036 compared to $5,133 for a Ford PPV) and only a slightly higher average annual repair or maintenance cost ($4,865 for the Tesla and $2,915 for the Ford), that initial hike in the price could be canceled throughout the vehicle's lifetime.
Wait a minute, aren't EVs supposed to have very low maintenance costs? Isn't that one of their selling points with their fewer moving parts and no oil to change? Yes, we found that value odd as well, and so did other people who took to Twitter to ask the FPD what that was all about. "One unanticipated cost was tires", the answer came. "We ran the vehicle on a pursuit course multiple days to help train officers and also had a couple of flat tires, so we had to replace a couple." There you have it.
Apart from having lower running costs, the Model S also scored very high in another area. The EV had an annual maintenance downtime of 39.125 days, almost 27 fewer than the Ford PPV. Finally, using the Model S instead of a gas-powered Ford prevented the release of 42,198 lbs (over 19 tons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that might just be something you can't really put a price on.
With the program deemed a success, it'll be interesting to see where things lead from here. However, given the speed at which things seem to move, we don't expect we'll see a larger fleet of EVs patrolling around Fremont anytime soon. You can read the report in full below.
Here's a selection of the modifications made to the Tesla: overhead light-bar and rear flashers, wheel well lights, headlight flashers, push-bumper, prisoner partition, prisoner seat, center equipment console, armor door panels for the two front doors - in total, $35,000 worth of mods were made or added to the car.
According to the report published yesterday, the initial trials - carried out at the Alameda County Emergency Vehicle Operations track yielded more than satisfactory results. The EV reportedly "exceeded expectations and performance objectives", which meant the Model S 85 was ready for field testing.
The purpose of the test was to gauge the viability of a wide-spread adoption of electric vehicles for police use as well as the operational and cost benefits this would bring. Obviously, the results would be compared to those of a standard, gas-powered car currently used by law enforcers.
Numbers after one year of fieldwork show that the only downside of an EV continues to be its higher acquisition price. However, with a much lower annual energy/fuel cost ($1,036 compared to $5,133 for a Ford PPV) and only a slightly higher average annual repair or maintenance cost ($4,865 for the Tesla and $2,915 for the Ford), that initial hike in the price could be canceled throughout the vehicle's lifetime.
Wait a minute, aren't EVs supposed to have very low maintenance costs? Isn't that one of their selling points with their fewer moving parts and no oil to change? Yes, we found that value odd as well, and so did other people who took to Twitter to ask the FPD what that was all about. "One unanticipated cost was tires", the answer came. "We ran the vehicle on a pursuit course multiple days to help train officers and also had a couple of flat tires, so we had to replace a couple." There you have it.
Apart from having lower running costs, the Model S also scored very high in another area. The EV had an annual maintenance downtime of 39.125 days, almost 27 fewer than the Ford PPV. Finally, using the Model S instead of a gas-powered Ford prevented the release of 42,198 lbs (over 19 tons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that might just be something you can't really put a price on.
With the program deemed a success, it'll be interesting to see where things lead from here. However, given the speed at which things seem to move, we don't expect we'll see a larger fleet of EVs patrolling around Fremont anytime soon. You can read the report in full below.
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