On July 29, City and State dignitaries converged on Downtown South Pasadena to celebrate the City’s first-in-the-country all-electric fleet of police vehicles. The MSRC partnered with the City to help the Police Department transition its entire police fleet to zero-emission by providing nearly $500,000 in Clean Transportation Funding. The fleet is now made up of 10 Tesla Model Y patrol vehicles and 10 Tesla Model 3s for detective and administrative duties.
Mayor Evelyn Zneimer welcomed the overflowing crowd to kick-off the morning’s festivities saying, “the City of South Pasadena prides itself on its independence and its commitment to sustainability. Today, we are celebrating a tremendous accomplishment of so many stakeholders and project partners to become the first City in the nation to implement a zero-emission police fleet,” she said.
MSRC Chair Larry McCallon highlighted the MSRC’s partnership with South Pasadena on this extraordinary achievement in his remarks to the audience. “We are proud to have partnered with the City to help achieve its goal of an all-EV police force and hope that this innovation will be replicated by other police and municipal fleets across the country.”
Other senior officials who spoke during the ceremony included U.S. Representative Judy Chu, State
Senator Anthony Portantino, Assemblymember Mike Fong, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, California Air Resource Board (CARB) and South Coast AQMD Board Member Gideon Kracov, and CARB Executive Officer Steve Cliff. (see photo of Chair McCallon, Board Member Kracov, and Executive Officer Cliff)
South Pasadena Police Chief Brian Solinsky spoke about the benefits of the new all-electric fleet. “Through extensive research and collaboration, we’ve established partnerships with industry experts and developed cutting-edge innovations. These police cars have been designed with safety, efficiency, and fiscal responsibility.” He explained that the up-fitting of these vehicles was optimized to provide officers with the safest vehicles and the best tools possible, ultimately improving the speed and overall service to the community.
The lead champion of the project – South Pasadena Councilmember and Vice-Chair of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) Governing Board Michael Cacciotti – enthusiastically told the attendees how these new vehicles will save residents thousands of dollars in fuel and maintenance costs while at the same time help fight the climate crisis.
“Today is really a transformative moment in the history of policing, the U.S., and the world as technology has now evolved to allow police departments to transition from polluting vehicles of the past to zero-emission, high performing, 5-star safety rated police vehicles of the future,” Councilmember Cacciotti explained. “What we’ve done here with our project partners in this small, typical American town of South Pas is to try to provide a model example for every city, every county, every state and federal agency in the U.S. to follow.”
According to City estimates, the transition is expected to save about $4,000 a year per vehicle on energy costs, plus provide additional savings on maintenance, such as brakes, oil changes, air filters, and more. Overall, the operational cost of the EVs will be at least half the per-mile cost of gasoline-powered vehicles. The vehicles will recharge at 34 charging stations installed at City Hall as part of this project.
Replacing the City’s old gasoline-powered police fleet with EVs will improve air quality because they were particularly high emitters. Police vehicles typically idle more than other vehicles when officers make traffic stops or respond to emergency calls, which generates harmful emissions. The new electric police fleet will cut both toxic smog-forming emissions of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide, plus emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading cause of global warming.
In his remarks, Councilmember Cacciotti reflected on how he started the City on this journey in 2020 when he began talking with the Police and Fire Chiefs and public works staff about exploring electric vehicles for the City. In 2022, the City Council voted to move forward with electrifying the police fleet, with the help of many project partners including the MSRC, Southern California Edison’s, Enterprise Fleet Management, Unplugged Performance’s UP FIT Division, and the Clean Power Alliance.
But, the real stars of the show came at the end of the event, when four of the new police cruisers came zooming down the street with their lights and sirens, falling in line so residents could get a closer look at their new electric police fleet.