The City of Oakland owns more than 1,500 vehicles that police officers, firefighters, and other city staff use every day. A new state environmental mandate means most of these gas-guzzling cars need to be swapped out for electric vehicles in the coming years.
According to Harold Duffey, the city’s Public Works director, Oakland’s vehicle fleet is already too old and needs to be replaced, regardless of the state mandate. Oakland’s average vehicle is more than 10.4 years old, which the city calls “unacceptable” due to the amount of maintenance it takes to keep it in good running condition.
“Due to the significant underfunding of vehicle replacements, the city fleet has become more aged and unreliable,” Duffey wrote in a recent report to the City Council.
According to Duffey, 80% of Oakland police patrol vehicles, 36% of city employee sedans, 50% of medium-duty trucks, 37% of heavy-duty trucks, and 66% of fire engines have a grade of “F,” when judged for their environmental impact and age.
“New vehicles get an ‘A’ because they require very little [maintenance]; older vehicles get the ‘F’ because they’re old enough that repairs can start costing more than the value of the vehicle,” explained city spokesperson Sean Maher. “It’s a critically important point of clarity that the city is not sending any unfit vehicles out on patrol,” Maher said.
Older cars also emit more pollution and cost more to fuel up.
According to Duffey’s report to the council, some police patrol cars are more than 15 years old and “have been in heavy service during the duration of their lifetime.”
The pandemic also made it more difficult for the city to upgrade its fleet. According to the city, sourcing problems with vendors put the whole fleet behind its replacement schedule.
Electric cars cost more to buy but are cheaper to operate and maintain
Electric and hybrid vehicles cost about $10,000 more on average than gas-powered cars. However, over the vehicle’s life, it costs a lot less to operate electric cars and trucks due to lower fuel prices and fewer trips to the mechanic.
Oakland currently doesn’t have a timeline or budget for replacing its entire fleet. However, the city’s spokesperson, Maher, said that when the city is ready to buy new vehicles, city staff will research the available options and put potential new vehicles to performance tests, including braking, horsepower, and other safety standards they need.
The current fleet of cars for the police department are Ford Police Pursuit Vehicles, Ford Fusion Responders, Ford Crown Victorias, and Chevrolet Tahoe trucks. Crown Victoria Interceptors, the main large sedan the OPD uses, were discontinued by Ford in 2011 although the company remade some versions in the subsequent years. It has a nearly 20-gallon tank, which can drive cops around between 300 and 420 miles between refuelings, according to an Edmunds car insurance estimate. Current EV makers that manufacture cars with ranges above 300 miles between rechargings are BMW, Rivian, Tesla, Lucid, and Ford, though many more are on the way.
The purchase price of EVs is only a fraction of the total cost to fully electrify the city’s fleet. The city must also upgrade its electrical charging infrastructure at city offices, maintenance yards, and police stations.
The total cost of electrifying police patrol cars and their charging infrastructure could be up to $75 million, with $45 million to buy 350 patrol cars and about $30 million to build fast-charging infrastructure at OPD’s Police Administration Building and the Eastmost Substation.
“To hit our industry-standard replacement cycle, the City will need a steady infusion of funding to purchase vehicles on a regular basis,” Oakland’s Maher said.
Why do police officers need newer cars?
The Oakland Police Department operates 35 beats for 24 hours a day over three separate, 8-hour-plus shifts. To cover all of Oakland this way, OPD has 340 vehicles, which includes 35 patrol vehicles, usually the newest of the lot. These new cars are run in back-to-back patrol shifts for a total of up to 20 hours a day. Another 35 vehicles are worked in the other patrol.
“Our longer-term goal is that 100% [of cars] should be less than 3 or 4 years old,” city spokesperson Maher said.
The California Air Resources Control Board requires medium-to-large cities like Oakland to buy clean-energy vehicles for at least half of all replacement purchases starting Jan. 1, 2024. By Jan. 2027, all replacements must be green energy vehicles like electric or hydrogen fuel. For now, the law exempts law enforcement and emergency response vehicles from meeting this standard.
“We have the technology available to start working toward a zero-emission future now,” said Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph when the requirement was passed.
Oakland currently has over 1,500 cars, but only 121 are alternative fuel.
Oakland also has a zero-emission vehicle policy and an “environmentally preferable purchasing policy,” which states that the city should try to buy non-pollution-emitting cars when replacing older ones.
Maher told The Oaklandside that high interest rates have prevented the city from taking out loans to buy new vehicles.
Duffey estimated that replacing about 1,000 gas-powered city vehicles with electric or renewable energy versions will require about $22 million a year for the next ten years. In previous years Oakland has spent about $6.4 million per year.
According to Duffey, another 275 medium- and heavy-duty cars used by city staff in various departments, like the Department of Transportation and Public Works, also need replacing and should be the city’s priority. The city estimates replacing these will cost between $92.7 and $102.7 million.
