By Jake Richardson

recent news story highlighted how the Bargersville, Indiana Police Department is saving a lot of money by using electric vehicles instead of gas-powered ones. Electric motors are more energy efficient than internal combustion engines, and not by a little. Electricity also costs less than gasoline, and EVs can be charged at night when the rates are lowest.

Electric vehicles can make excellent fleet vehicles because they may operate in a local area mainly or exclusively where they can make their runs and return to home base for regular charging. Although it’s not that common at the moment, some fleet owners may obtain their own rooftop or canopy solar power systems and charge their electric vehicles with self-generated electricity.

At CleanTechnica, we have previously reported on police departments using electric vehicles successfully. To add one more, here is an interview with Bargersville PD’s Chief of Police, Todd Bertram.

How many Teslas are in your fleet currently and which ones?

We have four Tesla Model 3’s and 10 Tesla Model Y’s.

Do you have onsite chargers for all of them?

We have eight Level 2 charging stations and one DC fast charger.

Is your fleet all electrics or are there some gas vehicles too?

We have a 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning and three other gas Ford F-150s.

About how much does the police department save each month by using electric vehicles?

Well, this is a hard question: for three cars in March of 2025 we spent $1,400 and for 14 electric cars we spent $765. So, if we assume we had all gas cars we would have spent $7,650, with a savings of $6,885 every month.

Is the savings only from fuel savings or is there some from less costly maintenance and repairs too?

The above numbers are just from fuel. We also do not do oil changes on 14 of the cars — that would be an additional savings of $1,190 about every 2 months.

Does the police department have some rooftop solar to charge the EVs or if not, will you get some solar power?

No, we do not but that would sure save a lot more money in the future maybe.

Are there any other benefits to using the Teslas such as the quietness and quickness compared to gas vehicles?

Faster turn-around times when things do need to be done and less down time.

Would you ever go back to an all-gas vehicle fleet?

No way, we would need to add another $100,000 to the tax payers burden and I don’t think the council would want to do that.