A recent trial, by the police have suggested that a tesla model three may well be a better car for police work, despite many doubters suggesting that it would never be able to handle work like this.
The average blue light run lasts between 7-15 minutes, yet the tesla model 3 has been able to take part in runs over 4 hours on active deployment, and it is thought to be possible to do more than 200 miles of blue light advanced driving on one charge.
The trial started earlier this year, when Tesla offered the UK police an adapted (and painted) version of the tesla 3. This comes as the police look into how they meet the governments ban on petrol and diesel cars from 2030. A variety of adaptions were made for the police, but did not impact range. They found that running number plates for 3 hours, only uses enough charge to loose a few miles of range.
They also found charging was fine. After getting into the car and finding that it only had 80 miles of range, they stopped at a V3 supercharger and gained 70% battery in 20 minutes (70% is at least several hundred miles) and the cost was under£20. The one negative that they spoke about was the light bar (which the lead tester, said felt like trying to drive with a parachute on). His suggestion was to incorporate the light bar into the body of the car, as is often done with unmarked cars. This also has the advantage of not needing you to drill holes in the roof of new cars.
Due to the needs of the police, Tesla 3 performance was the car that they tested. This car is just short of 60k where as the current model used comes in at £33,250. However given the huge reduction in the cost of running the car (both in terms of upkeep and charging, mean that over the life of the vehicle the tesla would be far cheaper.
What is clear from this exercise, is that far from waiting for the right car to come along, the Tesla model 3 is already better than the car used currently, and savings could be quite significant. Police across the country need to start making the shift in the next few years, Given there are in excess of 50,000 police cars in the UK, it could take some time to get them all. Another advantage is that currently british police cars are only kept for around 3 years. Given electric cars generally last longer, this could easily make the tesla 3 a cheaper option.
