UK Police Trial The Tesla Model 3
For the past nine months, police in the UK have had the opportunity to test out the Tesla Model 3 as a possible green addition to its fleet of police cars.
In the light of COP26 reaffirming our need to bring about the green revolution and for renewable energy, UK police forces up and down the country have been trialling the Tesla Model 3 as one of their options for doing their bit to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The trial has only been going on for nine months so far, and already there have been very positive reports.
What Is The Tesla Model 3?
The Model 3 is the world-renowned electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla’s most successful car. As the most affordable from its lineup, the car had instant success after its release in 2017, and by 2020 more than 400,000 units had been sold globally. It has been consistently the best-selling EV since the release, and now the UK police are giving it a spin in their latest trial of electric replacement for their fossil fuel powered vehicles.
The trial has been putting the Tesla Model 3 through its paces, testing to see whether it would make a contender for the greening of the UK police force. The UK police have already had electric cars on the road before, but the Model 3 might just be the one to make the government’s Road to Zero Strategy come to fruition. In the light of the strategy, fire, police, and ambulance services have been testing zero to low carbon alternatives, preparing for the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel run vehicles in 2030.
How's The Trial Going?
So far the trial has been a great success. The Model 3 has been able to endure all the tuffles and scrams that a police car would likely be involved in. Even dressed in the Battenburg uniform of a standard UK police car, the Tesla has been showing officers what it’s capable of. With acceleration of 0-60mph in 3.1s and a top speed of 168mph, the car is easily fast enough to tackle offenders on the road.
Also, it’s shown that it is capable of dealing with advanced driving conditions for 4 hours straight, only needing to be put on charge for 20 minutes to get an extra 6 hours out of a shift. If that wasn’t enough, that time on charge only cost around £20.
How Will This Benefit The Environment?
It’s clear that the Model 3 would make some significant savings to the police. Not having to worry about maintenance costs or refueling with petrol or diesel makes up for the £60,000 per unit. Despite the economic advantages, there are also important stats to suggest the Model 3 will help reduce the police’s carbon footprint.
For example, the Metropolitan Police already operates a fleet of 5,000 cars, each generating a whopping 4.6 metric tons of Co2 per year. The Model 3 only produces 91 grams of Co2 equivalent per km, which means that, over the 46,777,718 miles the Met covers every year, they would only be producing 6,850,611 kg of Co2 each year. That's a 24% decrease from using a normal petrol run car!
There’s still a little way to go before we start seeing Tesla’s patrolling our streets however. Despite the benefits, some modifications will need to be made, such as changing the blues-and-twos to reduce the impact on speed. Yet this green innovation in the public sector should have a great influence on the private sector. Even though we have incentives like the Climate Change Levy in place for businesses, the potential for reducing both emissions and costs for a company is much more attractive.