Akron Police Museum/Wikimedia Commons
Although many people buy electric vehicles for their efficiency, enthusiasts know the current crop of EVs can also be incredibly powerful and fast. It's been proven at the Nürburgring, where we've seen a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N lap the course quicker than a Porsche GT3 RS, and a Chinese electric hyper sedan prototype recently dropped a faster lap than any production car in history. So it's no surprise to learn that law enforcement is turning to EVs to keep up.
But EV police cars are hardly a new idea. In fact, the very first police car put into service in the United States relied solely on battery power: It was an electrified vehicle built by the Collins Buggy Company in 1899 for the city of Akron, Ohio. This was no high-powered pursuit vehicle, though. Relying on a pair of 4-horsepower electric motors, and weighing about 5,000 pounds, it was limited to a maximum speed of 18 mph.
But speed wasn't really the point. The vehicle had room for a full squad of officers — leading to the name squad car — but was more often used to transport people from the scene of a crime to the Akron jail. For example, its first time in action was to pick up an intoxicated troublemaker at Main and Exchange streets.
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In retrospect, the choice of electric power for the first police car makes sense. Electric vehicles were more popular than gas-engined cars at the turn of the 20th century — and steam cars were more popular still. Per the 1899 U.S. census, the nascent automaking industry produced a mere 936 cars with gasoline engines that year. This compared to 1,681 steam-driven cars and 1,575 EVs. That all changed when Henry Ford was able to slash the cost of building — and the cost of buying — the gas-powered Model T in 1908. And the first gas-powered police car came along just a year later in the Motor City.
Detroit had already introduced its Motorcycle Squad in 1908, but Police Commissioner Frank Croul thought there was a need for police cars, too. The city government disagreed, and turned down Croul's request for money to purchase one. Yet he was so committed to the idea that he forked over $350 of his own money to buy a Packard 30 Touring Car for police use and testing. This is considered the first gas-powered police car. Coincidentally, as in Akron, the first civilian picked up was a drunk.
After about a year in service, during which the car responded to some 2,235 calls, Detroit's Common Council was convinced of its effectiveness. As a result, a small police fleet of nine vehicles was purchased, including seven patrol cars.
The Model T, and major oil discoveries in the 1920s, helped gasoline become the fuel of choice for daily drivers and police fleets alike. Automakers started getting directly involved in the law-enforcement market in 1950, when Ford launched the first dedicated police package car with a choice of three engines highlighted by a 110-horsepower police-only V8 that could deliver 125 horses with an available dual exhaust. Chevrolet and Dodge began getting in on the action in 1955 and 1956, respectively.
It was "game on" for gasoline-engined police cars for the next 60 years or so, but modern electrified police cars began appearing in 2009 with the Mitsubishi MiEV. The U.K.'s West Midlands police began trying out some of the tiny EVs in November of that year.
By 2016, the Los Angeles Police Department was looking to welcome hundreds of BMW i3 EVs to its ranks, and in 2024, South Pasadena was boasting it had converted its entire fleet to Teslas. True, the LAPD's gently used BMW i3s were soon sold off, and California cops called the Teslas "nearly useless." Yet they did set the stage for a new wave of electrified police cars based on the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Chevrolet Blazer EV PPV — which may help close the performance gap between EV getaway cars and current police vehicles.
