New York City Adds 50 Chevy Volts to Police Fleet

The stop-and-go of city driving kills gas mileage, especially in big old cars like the Crown Vic. So it only makes sense that New York has purchased 50 Chevy Volts, some of them for police use

The purchase of 50 Volts was part of a larger order for 70 total EV’s, bringing NYC’s total EV fleet to 430 vehicles. While the NYPD currently uses electric motor scooters as ticketing vehicles, the Volts will serve as traffic enforcement vehicles, among other duties. Not every dispatch calls for a vehicle capable of high-speed pursuits among other things, and with up to 50 miles of all-electric range, the Volt will save NYC tens of thousands of dollars in gas costs every year. The more Volts they get, the more money they save.

I don’t think the Volt looks half-bad as a police car either, and it sets a precedent that other municipalities may follow. I don’t want to go too ahead of myself…but perhaps GM should consider marketing the Volt as a police pursuit vehicle as well. It’s not a bad idea if you ask me, as the market is wide open what with the impending retirement of the workhouse Crown Vic. A Volt cop on every block? Mayhaps my friends, mayhaps. And it’d be a good excuse to bump up the power output for those rare pursuits.

Source: NYC.gov via Jalopnik

Chris DeMorro is a writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs. You can read about his slow descent into madness at Sublime Burnout or follow his non-nonsensical ramblings on Twitter @harshcougar.

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Tags: car, Chevrolet, Chevy Volt, cop, electric vehicle purchase, new york police department, nypd, NYPD volt cop car, Volt, volt cop car

About the Author

Christopher DeMorro A writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs, Chris can be found wrenching or writing- or esle, he's running, because he's one of those crazy people who gets enjoyment from running insane distances.

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http://Web ziv

Buying the Volt makes sense for some of the Police department’s cars, though they won’t work optimally when they are loaded down with a cruisers load out. What would work better is for the NYPD to buy PHEV20 Ford Escape Hybrids for the cops on the beat. Half the time or more they are pulled over to the side of the road writing reports on their computers with their Crown Victoria’s idling away, wasting gas to keep the AC and the power on. With a PHEV20, they could use the pack to cool the car and power the computer and radio without wasting gas. PHEV30 would be better but then we are talking some serious batteries…
http://Web johnny_balls

Why is the NYPD buying 44 thousand dollar police cars???
- http://Web ziv
  
  Because NYPD cars go 30,000 miles a year and 22k miles on elec and 8k miles on gas in a Volt costs (733*15 cents is $110 plus 230 gallons of gas is around $920 for a total cost for energy of $1030. Police departments will be able to get 2 or 3 charges a day, making the Volt 35+ miles AER sufficient to cover a lot of miles.
  Crown Vics get around 15 mpg or 2000 gallons for a total cost of $8000. So Volts could get nearly $7000 of savings in one year and around $28k in 4 years. So since the Volt MSRP is less than $40k the Crown Vic would need to sell for less than $12k for the Volt not to be a better car if it is for uses that don’t require the normal police cruiser load out or high speed chases. Even without the tax credit, the Volt is a very inexpensive car to operate.
  - http://Web johnny_balls
    
    How do you figure that 22k of there driving is being done on electric?? And how will they get 3 charges a day? Once a car is assigned to a pair of officers it’s a good chance they will have the car for the whole 8hr tour they will be on. Unless charging time has changed then I stand corrected.
    - http://Web ziv
      
      These Volts aren’t going to be used as patrol cars, so if the NYPD only has 50 Volts I imagine they will use them on duties that are 4 hours out then back for lunch. The local press has already confirmed the no patrol car use issue, the police spokesman said it was partly because you can’t put a partition between the back and front seats and still have room for a person/perp in the back.
      Cars will optimally be out 4 hours at a time, then return to the motor pool to charge at 240V with a 16 amp charger, which means it will fully recharge in 3 hours. So most of the time the Volt will be driving for 8 hours a day, but sometimes they could be out there 3 shifts in one day, with the vast majority of the miles in CS mode. If they are out there on 8 hour shifts, the miles driven stays about the same but the amount of CD mode driving goes up.
      Most police vehicles rack up around 100,000 miles in 3-4 years, which you can see by the model year and the mileage at the auctions. So they average around 25-33k miles a year.
      My guesstimates were just that, guesses, but I used the miles that most police vehicles accumulate and figured that since the NYPD only has 50 Volts they would try to use them in the most efficacious manner. But knowing that Seattle bought hybrid buses that were optimally suited to stop and go and then used them on a highway speed route to the airport does make me question whether local governments get it. But in this case I think the NYPD will want their experiment to work. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the CS mode isn’t used more like 80-85% of the time rather than less than that.