Tesla Model S 85 VS Ford: Fremont Police Department Shares Results Regarding EV Pilot Program

Urian B., Tech Times 21 November 2020, 09:11 am

Tesla has been making headlines once again as the Model 3 New York Yellow Cab has just recently been announced. While this was already big news for the company to finally be put in the list of vehicles qualified for the esteemed New York famous Yellow Cab, there could also be bigger news regarding the use of Tesla's EV.

Electric vehicle 2020 uses

According to an article by Clean Technica, the Fremont Police department actually conducted a testing for the Model S 85 back in March of 2019 that was customized specifically for patrol operations. The testing then ended a year later and the results coming from the Fremont Police Department was sent over to Clean Technica.

The official results of the test have been released by the Fremont Police Department themselves showing how the Tesla Model S 85 had performed along with the police department. The results showed that the electric vehicle had actually exceeded performance as well as operational objectives while it was able to take the challenge of official police use.

Electric vehicle police fleet

The vehicle was stated to require just the minimum maintenance and has also proven to be really cost-efficient when it comes to the overall expenses of a vehicle including the maintenance as well as fuel savings. The Tesla Model S 85 showed a lower average annual maintenance downtime with just under 40 whole days in comparison to the 66 days for the normal Ford Patrol Police Vehicle or PPV.

The car also functioned with zero operational CO2 emissions while the current Ford PPV with a whopping 42,198 points of harmful CO2 emissions on an annual basis. Sean Washington, the Fremont's Police Captain stated that the results were encouraging.

Ford electric police vehicle: will Tesla be better?

It was stated that the City of Fremont still continues to search for cost-efficient ways to make the city more sustainable. With an average of a total of 27 fewer downtime days per year, the city is said to be able to save $2,147 when it comes to the total annual cost of fuel or energy, repair, maintenance, as well as no operational CO2 emissions. The Fremont PD pilot program has prompted them to move forward with its plans to expand the entire fleet of EV patrol vehicle alternatives.

The Fremont Police Department has also acquired two out of three different additional electric/hybrid patrol vehicles that it has budgeted for the duration of the last two fiscal years. This includes the 2020 Tesla Model Y at $57,126.83 as well as the 2021 Ford Hybrid Explorer at $48,223. The city aims to decrease the number of times that official police vehicles are out of service with Tesla and other EVs. Will the new Tesla Model S 85 police cars completely replace the Ford police cars? As of the moment, this remains to be unseen.