The United Kingdom Police has been running a Tesla Model 3 as a patrol car on trials for the last 9 months. Max Toozs-Hobson who is the Account Manager & Emergency Services Lead at Tesla has shared the latest development update of this trial program via his LinkedIn profile.
According to Max Toozs, Tesla Model 3 has brought some great results to the table in the 9-month long testing trials as a police cruiser.
Tesla Model 3 was able to perform over 200 miles of Blue Light advanced driving on a single charge. While the average blue light runs in the UK are 7 – 15 minutes long, the customized Model 3 police cruiser for this program delivered the longest run of 4 hours on a single charge.
Blue light driving in an emergency response vehicle has its own set of requirements, it’s not like driving in normal conditions. Responsible driving is required while taking over other traffic, performing high-speed maneuvers, and keeping other road users safety in mind at the same time.
Being the safest car in the world certainly helped achieve the optimal Blue Light driving goals in these Model 3 trials.
Max also discussed how this trial car’s specialized electrical and electronic features impacted its range in the following words:
The auxiliary systems have minimal impact on range, ANPR (Automatic number-plate recognition) for 3 hours would take less than a few miles of range off the car. LED lights could run for days off the battery pack.
Chill mode & speed limiting allows the cars to be limited, allowing the possibility for split crews to drive the car on shift allowing for all officers to utilize the car.
Lightbars are like running with a parachute! Integrating lights into the car cabin does not affect our drag coefficiency and requires no holes to be drilled into the roof which has a negative effect on the car’s residual values.
Charging on shift works! last week I joined a traffic unit who got into the car with just 80 miles of range. We stopped at a V3 Supercharger and gained 70% power in less than 20 minutes. This gave us another 5-6 hours of driving for the shift. Plus this fill-up cost less than £20.
Public response to seeing our active units has been mind-blowing, the press articles have been positive as well. As an engagement tool, we’re seeing incredible results.
Max Toozs-Hobson via LinkedIn
Testing the Tesl Model 3 electric police cruiser is part of the UK government’s Road to Zero 2030 policy. This is an aggressive plan by the UK government to electrify almost all of the country’s transportation by 2030 and emergency response vehicles are a large part of this transition. The government of London announced back in 2019 that by 2025, the city alone will have 50,000 electric vehicle charge points.
Max further highlighted the results and outcomes of this program:
With integrated USB C power ports officers can power their laptops whilst at scene or charging. The wireless charging pad as also come in handy!
Brake wear has been minimal, after 10,000 miles of driving the first set of pads still had 15-20% use still in them. Tires are the same as I.C.Es and need replacing at around 8,000 miles.
After 15,000 miles the only maintenance has been brakes and tires, no annual service schedules mean minimal running costs, time off the road, and competitive total cost of ownership.
Tesla software updates and systems offer new ways to police, the ability to send directions to the car via systems such as what3words and Google maps will allow control rooms to send direct directions to a job. Dashcam, GPS tracking & App access offer unique potential to our cars as well.
Our delivery lead times and body shop offer industry-leading deployment for forces to deploy new units and repair.
Related: The tough Tesla Model 3 glass roof endures a rollover accident in China
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