5 Reasons This Police Department Switched to Electric Vehicles and Number Four Will Shock You!!!
My bucket list has “Write one article with a click bait title” on it and that is now complete — I feel dirty and once was enough.
Bargersville, Indiana is a former farm town that is now a bedroom community for Indianapolis and has grown from 2,000 to 10,000 residents since the 2000 census. This also means that needed services such as policing have grown and changed. In 2019 the police department was both hiring officers and buying patrol vehicles for them, which was putting a strain on the town budget.
Police Chief Todd Bertram, after much analysis, decided on a bold course by purchasing a Tesla Model 3 instead of the usual Dodge Charger. In 2020 the Daily Journal published a story on the experience.
Last year, Bargersville police became the first in Indiana to add Teslas to its fleet. Though Teslas are more expensive upfront compared to traditional gas-powered police cars, the town will save money on fuel and maintenance. Right now, a 2021 Tesla Model 3 starts at $37,990, while a new Dodge Charger starts at $29,995.
Though the savings were less than expected this year due to gas prices falling amid the coronavirus pandemic, Bertram is happy with the savings. He is so happy, in fact, he is working on a cost comparison to determine if the town should expand its Tesla fleet even further next year, when the department plans to purchase three SUVs. If his analysis suggests more Teslas would be a better value, he would pursue purchasing those instead, he said.
Bertram this year tracked the costs to operate an in-service Tesla Model 3 and an in-service Dodge Charger and found it cost about $6,700 less to operate the Tesla.
In a year, the department spent about $7,580 on gas, oil and maintenance for the Charger. During the same period, the department spent $825 on electricity to charge the Tesla, and no maintenance was needed.
After 16 months in service, just one of the Teslas has needed maintenance — collision repair after an officer hit a deer.
Even with a two-year break-even point, it is worth the investment, Bertram said.
“My experience with Tesla is that it is an amazing car. There is less downtime because there is virtually no maintenance,” he said.
At that time Bargersville was adding two Teslas to it’s then fleet of three Teslas. A few months later an article was published on the greaterindiana.com website, by a non-profit group that promotes alternative fueled vehicles, gives more detailed information.
In August 2019, the Bargersville Police Department introduced its first all-electric patrol vehicle, making it one of the first departments in the United States to implement the Tesla Model 3 as a squad car. Since then, three more Tesla Model 3 vehicles have been added to the department’s fleet.
For many years it was believed electric vehicles could not provide the speed, handling, and power needed in pursuit vehicles. Police Chief Todd Bertram of the Bargersville Police Department says, “that is not the case.”
Following Bargersville’s lead, the Westport Police Department in Connecticut and the Windham County Sherriff’s Office in Virginia have purchased their first Tesla vehicles.
Chief Todd Bertram and the Bargersville Police Department found the Tesla Model 3 vehicles are saving the department each month. August of 2020 marked the one-year birthday of the first Tesla Model 3 purchased by the department. Bertram reported over the course of its first year, the Tesla Model 3 saved the department $6,320 in fuel and maintenance costs. As shown in the table below, the department’s cost for the Tesla Model 3 was $825 compared to $7,580 for the Dodge Charger.
The details for one vehicle are below. The police department has five EV cars in the fleet.
The big item savings are in the maintenance and any day that a patrol car sits at a repair shop it is out of service for the officers. The fuel savings are dependent on local gasoline prices but it hasn’t gotten any cheaper. Also, because electricity prices are much more stable than gasoline prices, EVs are much more department budgeting friendly. One interesting aspect that Chief Bertram talks about is the many cameras on the Tesla providing useful recordings for accidents or investigations.
Now, in 2024, a new story came out from the local TV news station WRTV and the news is great. The department now has 13 Tesla patrol cars and only six gasoline fueled vehicles for other duties and the savings in fuel costs alone is $80,000 per year.
Teslas cost more than a Dodge Charger or Ford Crown Victoria, but Clerk Treasurer Dustin Doyle said the money saved on fuel makes up the difference in less than three years.
“If it benefits the environment, fantastic,” Doyle said. “But this benefits our taxpayers in the sense that we’re saving money and we’re being fiscally responsible with their money.”
In 2018, Bargersville spent $54,000 on gas for police cars. By 2023, the town added six new police cars but spent about $31,000 on fuel, Doyle said.
And if you are wondering about trade in value — there is more good news.
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“When we run those Chargers to the end of their life on a police force, we’re lucky to get $3,000 to $5,000 trade value for them,” he said.
“We just traded our first car in this year and we got $17,500 for a 2019 Tesla.”
There is also an interesting video report on the www.wrtv.com/… website that shows more reasons why the Tesla is a great police car for the department.
So what about other police departments? They like the savings a lot and are starting to switch. Two that I found were the Somerset, WI police with one Model Y and the South Pasadena Police Department which will convert to all EVs. Both articles show that EVs are more than capable of police duty and they save the departments a lot of money. At least one public safety industry publication agrees that PEV might stand for Police Electric Vehicle. One aspect that the police representatives spotlight is the nice monetary savings — hard for anyone to argue with that (looking at all you fiscal hawks).
The future also looks great as GM has just release a police patrol version of the Chevy Blazer EV and other departments are using the Ford Mach-E. Many commenters here have talked about how EVs are a great fit for police duty and now that all is coming true — a nice step forward for municipal budgets and for the environment.
