Tesla Model 3 crushes Dodge Charger in 1-year review of cost of operation as police car

Tesla Model 3 is crushing Dodge Charger as a police car when it comes to the cost of ownership as the Bargersville Police Chief who pushed to electrify his fleet shares a 1-year review of the cost of operation.

Last year, we reported on the Bargersville, Indiana, police department updating their fleet with Tesla Model 3 vehicles.

Bargersville Police Chief Todd Bertram commented at the time:

Two big things that we were looking at when shopping for cars were obviously cost and performance. Many times when you get a car that is in our cost price range, you sacrifice performance. With Tesla, the performance is better than the cars we are currently driving. It’s amazing, it’s smooth, it’s powerful, it handles great.

The Model 3s replaced Dodge Chargers, so performance was not going to be an issue.

As for cost, Tesla also has a significant lead. The Model 3 Standard Range Plus version that they bought is a little more expensive than the Dodge Charger at ~$41,000, but they expect gas savings of about $6,000 per year, which means that the Model 3 will pay for itself over its lifetime.

They generally keep their vehicles for six years, and after they broke down the economics, they determined that they are going to save about $20,000 per car with the Model 3.

It includes not only gas savings, but the police department is also expecting some significant maintenance savings.

They expected that the electric vehicles would pay for themselves in about two years.

Earlier this year, Bertram indicated that he believed it could be even faster and after the first full year of using the Tesla Model 3, they found that they already saved over $6,000:

That already covers the difference in the price of purchase between the two vehicles before converting them into police patrol cars.

At this point, more and more police departments are starting to see the Tesla Model 3 as a real option for a patrol vehicle.

In Tesla’s own backyard, the Fremont Police Department converted a used Tesla Model S to a patrol vehicle.

The Luxembourg Police converted two Model S sedans to patrol cars, and the largest fleet of Tesla police patrol vehicles is in Switzerland.