Northfield PD tests electric squad car against Minnesota’s winters

In an effort to meet the city of Northfield’s Strategic Plan and Climate Action goals, the Northfield, Minn., Police Department purchased a 2022 Ford Mach-E for use as a patrol vehicle. Like all things over the past year, we experienced delays in the supply chain for the vehicle and equipment, but in January 2023, we finally have the squad in service. We undertook this project as a test vehicle. In researching electric vehicles and the pros and cons compared to vehicles we currently use, we have questions on whether it will meet our needs of a police service vehicle here in the far northern climate we have in Minnesota. Our plan is to run a two-year test cycle to fully evaluate the vehicle. As a side note, we run a mix of gas and hybrid Ford police Explorer vehicles in our patrol fleet.

As we searched our options for electric vehicles, we specifically chose the Ford Mach-E for the all-wheel drive capabilities to handle the snow and ice of Minnesota winters, the SUV style for carrying capacity for our emergency response equipment and the fact that we have a Ford dealership in town should we need dealer support for service. For a rural department of 26 officers, driving an hour each way for service on a vehicle to another dealer can impact our ability to serve our community.

Northern Safety Technology (NST) in Apple Valley, Minn., did the upfitting build for us. They came with many years of squad building experience and research into how they could help this build meet our needs. Chief among our concerns is the vehicle battery range. We ordered the California model, as that was the only model on the state cooperative purchase bid with the extend range battery (315 miles). We know that Minnesota temperature extremes and 10-hour patrol shifts may test this range limit operationally. Frequently, we find our patrol officers making a 60-mile one-way trip to a detox or juvenile housing facility. This trip at the end of a shift could be concerning, depending on range capacity.

NST built an isolated separate battery system for all emergency and police equipment used in the squad, leaving the Mach-E’s original equipment battery to just run the car systems. An Ultimate Power lithium-ion battery is at the heart of the system with a 100 amp hour battery. This is an iron-phosphate design that holds its charge longest among LI batteries, and it has a built-in warmer. The battery has its own Victron Energy Orion DC-DC charger. The charger runs when the main car charger is plugged in and when the car ignition is off, to ensure that the vehicle batteries only run the vehicle and not the police equipment or auxiliary battery. This system runs the squad computer, emergency lighting, Axon Fleet 3 squad camera system and Cradlepoint router. Initial testing shows we can run an entire shift on this setup, and when running the emergency lighting for a six-hour test, it showed a 20% draw on the battery. An app allows monitoring of the battery and charging condition.

Whelen provided the emergency lighting. With the glass roof as the only option on the California model, a traditional roof mounted light bar was not an option, so front emergency lighting were accomplished with the Whelen Inner Edge WeCANX mounted on the interior top of the windshield and ION lights on the push bumper. Rear lighting was accomplished with three levels of Whelen ION lighting: two on the top and bottom of the rear window; and a third hidden under the rear hatch lid, with a down flash off the reflective 3M rear warning trim. The lights are controlled through CenCom Core. The operator’s cab portion is smaller than the Explorers, and even though the inner light bars are low profile, our taller officers do have some upward vision obstructions. There is no spotlight, although there is a very bright takedown light from the inner edge; the movement capabilities of a hand-directed spotlight are missing. We may add a remotecontrolled spotlight in the future.

Setina provided the push bumper and rear seat and half cage with front and rear dividers. Setina just put these in production in the last few months. We did have an issue with the glass roof being higher than the standard roof on the GT model, and NST had to fabricate an extension to fully enclose the prisoner partition for safety.

The vehicle was wrapped by Advanced Graphix in Vadnais Heights, Minn. Like all things, the new model style meant there was not a standard wrap program, and they had to custom measure and build the wrap in their design studio. They matched the wrap styling to our other fleet for consistency in design and recognition as a police squad with the traditional black and white styling.

To achieve the best operating conditions, an isolated, separate battery system was installed for all emergency and police equipment used in the squad, leaving the Mach-E’s original equipment battery to just run the car systems.

Charging of the vehicle is handled through a level 2 JuiceBox 48-amp Wi-Fi-enabled charger. The charger was hardwired into a 60 amp circuit in our fleet garage. The charger gives us app connectivity to monitor charging rate and performance. We have found the JuiceBox 48 charges our squad’s battery at a rate of about 10% per hour.

We are only a couple months into this test, and so far, the officers are impressed with the vehicle’s performance. It is fast, quiet and so far the traction control has worked well in slippery conditions. The battery life has met our needs, although temperatures have been mild for a Minnesota winter and call volume has been slow. Having the officer’s plug in the squad when they are back in the office for lunch or reports has helped top off the charge and ensure the car can go a full shift. With no level 1 chargers in the city, and no chargers at all at other places officers go think jail, court, detox, hospital, etc. we are concerned about range. Until charging infrastructure improves, range will be a limiting factor for this squad. For these reasons, we have not attempted to push the limits yet.

About The Author

Mark Elliott is the police chief in Northfield, Minn., a rural city of 20,000 just outside of the twin cities metropolitan area. He has a bachelor’s degree in police science and a master’s in organizational leadership from St. Mary’s University. He has been in law enforcement for 31 years and served with four different departments, with six years as police chief in two different departments. He has over 15 years of fleet management experience and has managed squad acquisition, up-fitting and fleet rotation at three agencies.