Are electric vehicles ready for prime time for law enforcement?
Well, that’s a question which we may find out the answer soon from at least one city in China, which recently inked a deal with electric car manufacturer BYD for 500 non-gas powered police vehicles to be used for daily patrol and law enforcement.
Assuming we are understanding what BYD means by this, it takes the use of electric vehicles and police in a different direction. Sure, there are the odd items like the armed Advanced Non Lethal Crowd Control Electric Vehicle from T3 Motion, and we do see electric bikes and motorcycles being used in some cities for various police needs, but for the most part EVs are limited to things like follow up calls and rides for parking enforcement personnel.
BYD argues its e6 electric car can hit around 140 km/hr, or 87 mph, and has a top range of 300 km, or 186 miles, “satisfying the demands of police vehicles to perform daily patrol and law enforcement.” China’s Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau seems to be betting the farm on this premise, ponying up for 500 of these vehicles.
What may be helping in this large scale purchase is the fact BYD has its global headquarters in Shenzhen. The company has already made significant in-roads in its home base of operations getting green cars on the streets, with some 300 e6 electric taxis and 200 electric buses in service there already. The taxis already have an accumulated mileage of over 30 million kilometres (or 18.6 million miles), with the buses logging in at over 10 million kilometres (or 6.2 million miles).
This is expected to grow, not only via the existing vehicles already on the roads, but with plans calling for a further 500 taxis and 500 buses to be brought online there as well. There was no mention of when the total fleet of 500 electric police cars would be hitting the roads in Shenzen.
