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Bargersville adds Tesla Model 3 to its police fleet

Bargersville, Indiana, Police Department gets Tesla vehicle

Aleah Hordges | News 8 at 5 p.m.

BARGERSVILLE, Ind. (WISH) — The town’s police department has added a Tesla Model 3 electric car to its fleet of law enforcement vehicles.

Bargersville Police Department Chief Todd Bertram said it’s one of the only Model 3s in the state and the country that a police agency has.

The department said it believes is the electric car is the future for city and local law enforcement agencies. It will be out on the road Aug. 30.

Jeremy Roll, the department’s public information officer, said the best part is the officers don’t have to put liquid fuel in the car and it does not have a loud engine.

He said, “Especially at nighttime, the sound of the cars when we’re trying to come up on something a little bit more discretely than what we would normally come up (in) during the daytime, it’ll help out with that. We have a lot of back alleys in the Old Town.”

The Tesla is also cost-effective for the department, the police chief said.

“We need to hire new people and that all lowers the tax rates, so the goal is to kind of keep that as low as we can,” Bertram said.

The police department said it believes it will save taxpayers around $6,000 per year on average. It plans to replace its four Dodge Chargers with Model 3s in the near future. The department is spending more than $8,000 a year on gas, oil and insurance on each Dodge vehicle.

“Even the tires and the windshield wipers are cheaper on the Tesla than on the Dodge Charger, so just regular police maintenance that we’re going to be doing,” the chief said.

The new ride will also make an officer’s job more convenient as they can start the vehicle from their smartphone, police said.

“In the wintertime, that is definitely going to be an outstanding asset to us as opposed to going outside, starting the car up and getting warm,” Roll said.

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