UK police add dozens of Nissan Leaf electric cars to fleet


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UK police add dozens of Nissan Leaf electric cars to fleet

While Dubai police are busy bolstering their fleet with Lamborghinis, Ferraris and the like, police in the UK have taken a slightly more pragmatic approach by purchasing a fleet of thirty Nissan Leafs.

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The electric vehicles will be deployed as 'diary' cars, which police use to attend pre-arranged meetings with victims of crime or locals who contact the local police force.

The force believes the Nissan Leaf is well suited to a 'diary' role, despite the limited range and long recharge times inherent to electric cars. Diary cars typically average 40 to 45 miles per day, so the Leaf's 124-mile range should prove more than sufficient, even if somebody forgets to plug the thing in overnight.

Ten local policing units (LPUs) will run three diary car Leafs each. Each LPU will be kitted out with dedicated charging points.

Bob Jones, Police and Crime Commissioner for West Midlands Police said: "We welcome the new LEAFs, which fit in perfectly with the operational requirements of diary cars and will significantly cut our fuel costs while also reducing our carbon footprint."

Barry Beeston, Nissan corporate sales director said: "It?s fitting that the UK?s largest corporate LEAF deal to date is with such a prestigious institution in the West Midlands Police."

"The LEAF is becoming ever more popular as fleet managers see the benefits of 100% electric vehicles and massively reduced running costs. We?re delighted to hear the police are already enjoying driving the LEAFs and we hope they?re enjoying going after a new type of lead!?

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Ewww

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(Y). Bearing in mine this isn't to chase bad guys, only to go visit victims / community members. The less emissions the better!

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Doesnt charging the car technically cause more pollution? Cause that electricity has to be generated. The fact that it charges over night and only gives 40 miles is such a waste. I can do 60mpg per gallon which is better than this eletric trash.

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(Y). Bearing in mine this isn't to chase bad guys, only to go visit victims / community members. The less emissions the better!

Pretty much.

Good to see a shift towards a greener way of thinking, even if all it does is shift that waste elsewhere.

Doesnt charging the car technically cause more pollution? Cause that electricity has to be generated. The fact that it charges over night and only gives 40 miles is such a waste. I can do 60mpg per gallon which is better than this eletric trash.

Although i totally agree, it causes less air pollution around populated areas and is quieter. Two thumbs up from me.

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Doesnt charging the car technically cause more pollution? Cause that electricity has to be generated. The fact that it charges over night and only gives 40 miles is such a waste. I can do 60mpg per gallon which is better than this eletric trash.

read the Article it has a range of 124 miles per charge

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Doesnt charging the car technically cause more pollution? Cause that electricity has to be generated.

It's easier to improve the efficiency of power generation?through renewable energy, reduced emissions, improved standards?than it is to replace huge numbers of vehicles each time technology improves. As renewable energy production increases the pollution level produced by these vehicles decreases. More importantly it improves the air quality of roads, which is especially important in cities (London actually has the worst air pollution of any European city). It's disgusting that in this day and age that we're still using cars powered by fossil fuels and still generating electricity from coal.

These may be expensive but we have an obligation to transition towards an environmental friendly economy and this is a small step in the right direction.

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I'd love one of these if I needed a car. We already have two charging points within a short walk of my house in North London and I'm sure the numbers will increase as the cars become more common.

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(Y). Bearing in mine this isn't to chase bad guys, only to go visit victims / community members. The less emissions the better!

the electricity is created using fossil fuels anyway? unless all the power we use to charge the cars is renewable it really makes no difference

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the electricity is created using fossil fuels anyway? unless all the power we use to charge the cars is renewable it really makes no difference

True that. I can't wait for the day when we have a truly functioning electric car that doesn't rely on outside sources!

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the electricity is created using fossil fuels anyway? unless all the power we use to charge the cars is renewable it really makes no difference

It's still more efficient and less polluting to have the power stations produce the electricity than have each individual car have a combustion engine. Also, as i mentioned above, wouldn't you prefer (if you had to choose) that cities became less polluted and quieter?

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Here are some statistics on energy generation in the UK as of late 2010:

renewables 7%

coal 28%

nuclear 18%

gas 45%

other fuels 1%

imports 1%

Fossil fuels are clearly our main source of energy but the use of renewables is increasing. According to this article it had already jumped to 9.6% by late 2011 so I expect it's well over 10% by now. As a result, It's pretty clear that electric cars are already less polluting than petrol driven cars and the situation is only going to get better over time. The all or nothing approach is pretty meaningless in this context.

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It's still more efficient and less polluting to have the power stations produce the electricity than have each individual car have a combustion engine. Also, as i mentioned above, wouldn't you prefer (if you had to choose) that cities became less polluted and quieter?

meh not really i like the city for its noise, its the country i like for its tranquility... i like both ... also the noise from cars is useful lol if electric cars start coming out more il probs be run over in a week, if i cant see the roads I listen to them

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the electricity is created using fossil fuels anyway? unless all the power we use to charge the cars is renewable it really makes no difference

Actually, it already makes a difference... http://www.betterpla...petrol-car.html Yes, that's Australia, but the principle is the same: throughout a car's lifespan from birth to scrap, an electric car still emits less CO2 than a standard ICE car. And the kicker is as the ratio between fossil fuels and renewable energies tip in the favour of the latter, the electric cars will get even greener, while the ICE cars will stay exactly the same.

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Until battery tech improves greatly, these cars aren't ready for the masses. But for small roles like this, it should be a good fit.

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Until battery tech improves greatly, these cars aren't ready for the masses. But for small roles like this, it should be a good fit.

Actually, they already are ready for the masses. The average daily commute here in the UK is under an hour: http://www.guardian....ommute-slog-joy (that's both ways, by the way) - Worst case scenario is if you're constantly travelling at 70mph throughout, so just under 70 miles a day; the Nissan LEAF can do over 100 miles (the newest one does 124 miles), you charge it either at work or overnight while you're sleeping, so it's definitely ready for the masses.

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Actually, they already are ready for the masses. The average daily commute here in the UK is under an hour: http://www.guardian....ommute-slog-joy (that's both ways, by the way) - Worst case scenario is if you're constantly travelling at 70mph throughout, so just under 70 miles a day; the Nissan LEAF can do over 100 miles (the newest one does 124 miles), you charge it either at work or overnight while you're sleeping, so it's definitely ready for the masses.

Well the problem is that the power grid would have to be greatly upgraded to compensate for everybody having a car plugged in every day/night.

In this country on a hot summer day, it isn't uncommon for the power to go out due to too many people running their air conditioners. Having the extra load of these cars plugged in would greatly amplify those occurrences.

In densely populated areas, this would be a huge problem, and those are the areas that can be really dangerous to have power outages.

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Well the problem is that the power grid would have to be greatly upgraded to compensate for everybody having a car plugged in every day/night.

In this country on a hot summer day, it isn't uncommon for the power to go out due to too many people running their air conditioners. Having the extra load of these cars plugged in would greatly amplify those occurrences.

In densely populated areas, this would be a huge problem, and those are the areas that can be really dangerous to have power outages.

True, that's a fair point in America. What I've read for here in the UK though (but annoyingly, I can't find a source at the moment), it would actually improve the efficiency of our power stations, as instead of constantly turning stations off at night when demand drops, the increase in charging cars would reduce fluctuations in energy usage and in turn, reduce the need to turn stations on and off constantly, increasing efficiency.

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True, that's a fair point in America. What I've read for here in the UK though (but annoyingly, I can't find a source at the moment), it would actually improve the efficiency of our power stations, as instead of constantly turning stations off at night when demand drops, the increase in charging cars would reduce fluctuations in energy usage and in turn, reduce the need to turn stations on and off constantly, increasing efficiency.

You're right in a sense, but I'm not so sure that efficiency is too big of a deal. Yeah the turbines do suck some power to spin back up, but it's not a drastic amount of power draw. Plus newer turbines are operating on a fast-startup method, which will also help as old turbines are upgraded.

Overall, the increased power draw for all the electric cars would largely outweigh the power savings from not needing to power-up the turbines as much. It would make for an interesting case study though. :)

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Doesnt charging the car technically cause more pollution? Cause that electricity has to be generated. The fact that it charges over night and only gives 40 miles is such a waste. I can do 60mpg per gallon which is better than this eletric trash.

Except that the quantity of electricity needed to charge one is so minimal that the pollution from generating the electricity is much less than that of a normal car's pollution..

Its about ?3 of electricity to charge the car for just under 150 miles, average modern car does what 500ish miles on a tank costing about ?60-70 with current prices...electric for that distance ?10-12...

So not only are they polluting less they're also saving the economy money...all good IMO considering they're just being tasked as dairy cars.

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Some people here have obviously been taken in a bit too much by the anti electric car lobby. Yes, an electric car run entirely on fossil fuel generated electricity does produce CO2. But power stations are actually pretty efficient at producing electricity, and produce much less CO2 than even a fairly efficient ICE. The thing is that comparing CO2 emissions from the tail pipe of an ICE car against those of the extra emissions from a coal/gas fired power station is misleading. You should also factor in the HUGE amounts of electricity required to generate the fuel in the first place. Many oil refineries have their own power stations because they require so much electricity to run. If you then add in green sources of electricity you start to realise just how much more efficient and less polluting an electric car really is.

If the police stations using these cars also had solar panels fitted to their roofs it would be entirely possible to run the cars completely off solar power for a noticeable proportion of the time (i.e. truly zero emissions), and use the solar panels to supplement grid power the rest.

Range is still a bit of an issue, but given that the vast majority of car journeys wouldn't even begin to come close to 100miles it's really less of an issue than it's made out to be. Modern charging systems can usually get most batteries to about 80% charge in 20 minutes or so (enough time for a tea/coffee break), so range anxiety starts to look a little silly. Especially in a country like the UK which is physically fairly small, so rolling out a decent charging infrastructure is pretty easy.

This move to trial EVs by the police is a great move, and I for one am looking forward to EV technology moving on a pace and becoming readily affordable to the masses which is the last real hurdle to be solved.

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*snipped*

Well-said. (Y) In the UK, it seems to be the BBC at the forefront of the anti electric car lobby. They did a small piece on it on Radio 4's PM programme a few weeks ago with Robert Llewellyn (better known as Kryten from Red Dwarf, who's very pro-electric and owns a Nissan LEAF), and it was blatantly biased, using figures to shoot down electric cars that were already discovered to be complete bulls**t (which coincidentally, Robert did write about). But most people usually remember the Top Gear segment from 2011.

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