Battery Electrics: The Highway Stars for Law Enforcement?

What you’ll learn:

• The City of Austin is deploying BEVs and seeing significant cost savings in the process.
• Austin is one of the police organizations running the new 498-HP Blazer EV PPV battery-electric police pursuit vehicles through its paces.
• Cities are limited by the capabilities and awareness provided by EV manufacturers, as well as by grants to fund pilot test programs that quantify vehicle performance and fiscal benefits.

Whole lotta nuthin’...

A wrist twist puts it behind

Electric cop car?

The City of Austin, Texas’ Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Council Committee recently issued an update on its fleet electrification efforts. The city’s 2030 goal is to electrify 40% of viable fleet vehicle miles traveled.

Austin currently has 373 battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) in service, representing 1.8M miles of annual use, with the objective to increase its fleet to 703 BEVs by 2030. To support these vehicles, the city is deploying 282 dedicated fleet chargers at its own facilities by the end of this year, expanding the number of charger ports to almost 500 by 2030.

The city’s 7,760 fleet assets across 25 departments consists of sedans, SUVs, light-duty pickup trucks, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, refuse and recycling trucks, emergency-response units, boom trucks, and bucket lifts that operate 24/7 across terrain, weather, and service demands. Of these, 29%—primarily the light duty sedans, SUVs, pickups, and passenger van—have been determined to be BEV candidates.  

Amongst the fleet, 37% are in limited or early pilot testing for electrification viability, including police pursuit-rated BEVs like the Chevy Blazer EV, refuse collection BEVs such as those from Battle Motors, and a fire apparatus pumper truck. Curiously, 34% of the fleet to date were determined to not have BEV options. They include heavy off-road units, powerline specialty units, or heavy payload capacity vehicles.

With 373 BEVs in service, the city estimates it’s saved $2.5M so far (see figure), averaging $418,000 per year or $1,200 per BEV, with 48% of those savings derived from fuel costs. And 52% expense reductions were realized from maintenance savings over ICE vehicles. The BEV fleet averages 7.75 MWh of energy use per month, at a cost from Austin Energy of $0.09/kWh. The city will reach 282 charging ports under its direct control by year’s end and has 1,500+ public charging stations within its boundaries.

It’s Got a Cop Motor, Cop Suspension...

The highest idle time and highest mileage fleet for the city is that of the Austin Police Department, which has been identified for pilot testing using the newly emerging Chevy Blazer EV PPV (police pursuit) model. Similar to the civilian-trim Blazer EV SS model made available a few months ago, the PPV includes the following features:

• 20-A relay (2) in front console area
• 30- and 40-A relay in cargo area
• 50-A front-row/100-A cargo area leads and grounds
• 1,000-lb. max trailering capacity
• Brembo front brakes with 15.3-in. rotors
• Dedicated electrical center with harnesses in the front row and rear cargo area for police use
• Dedicated 400- to 12-V Power Module Reducer to support emergency equipment
• Dual-level charge cord, 120- and 240-V capability
• Engineered for 100 A of continuous emergency equipment loads
• Heavy-duty police-rated suspension
• Police performance calibrations
• Steel underbody skid plates
• EV drive system, two-motor, performance all-wheel drive (AWD)

Quite the list of equipment for Dan Aykroyd to rattle off in “Blues Brothers II – Electric Vehicle Boogaloo,” though there’s no official word from GM on cigarette lighter reliability. Though the Brembo brakes and two-motor performance AWD appear to be shared with the civilian SS model, the SS is not tow-rated, nor does it have the hefty cabin-power delivery capability of the cop variant.

Up until last week, I had a Blazer EV SS reserved. The showstopper when it was delivered was discovering I’d have to pay for an OnStar subscription after eight years in order to access the GPS (I use Waze for its crowdsourced traffic and alert features—Waze did run on a vehicle I drove before reserving, but I subsequently discovered that Waze was accessing the GPS buried in the OnStar system, versus in the entertainment module).

The Blazer also didn’t have CarPlay, and its encrypted CANbus prevents me from using a Comma.ai self-driving hack on the vehicle. The Bolt EV has all of this capability; I did install the self-driving capability—no maps, no subscriptions, and it works.

Office(r) on Wheels

One interesting aspect of BEVs, from my own experience with the Bolt EV, is that you can use them all day as a portable office, enjoying climate-controlled comfort via electrical power (I use a 120-V inverter plugged into the—ahem, cigarette lighter—socket to run the laptop) without running an engine—ever.

A BEV can be a quiet, portable office; is nicely soundproofed if you get the premium sound system; and with it you can do hands-free Zoom calls—all of which is a significant part of the day for a police vehicle’s function. Austin gets it, GM almost gets it, while Stellantis has delayed the four-door Charger Daytona, presumably upon which a police pursuit vehicle will be based. And Ford has a toe in the water with police variants of its Mach-E and F-150 Lightning pickup truck.

Austin’s Blazer EV PPV pilot testing runs through 2026. Meanwhile, the city is looking to industry to provide solutions:

“We need manufacturers to accelerate both the development of electric models for the 71% of our fleet without viable BEV options and the advancement of battery technologies that can meet real-world duty cycles, power demands, and acceptable charge times.”

Based on my recent blog on battery technologies, and our articles on advanced BEV battery chemistries in real-world trials, the City of Austin may get its wish in a couple of short years, despite the luddites in America’s Federal government acting as boat anchors for the inevitable benefits that vehicle electrification has to offer—ironically demonstrating elimination of waste and cost from government.

If American manufacturers don’t deliver, the Chinese and Europeans most certainly will. It’s just not cool to get pulled over on your R6 by a “Dolphin” or a “Renault” versus an unmarked Highway Patrol issue Charger Daytona EV or a 498-HP cop-motored Blazer EV PPV.

And please turn the GPS and CarPlay back on, Chevy, like you did in the Honda Prologue, cuz there’s nothing like Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” blaring away in your cop car’s Bose premium sound system as you’re chasing down a rogue biker at 130mph on the boring, open highways of Texas hill country.

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