About half of the Durango Police Department’s patrol fleet is now hybrid, and the agency is testing two fully electric vehicles for administrative use.
According to Investigations Division Cmdr. Jacob Dunlop, the agency has 14 hybrid Ford F-150 trucks and six hybrid Ford Explorer Interceptors, with five more Interceptors on the way that will need to be outfitted for police work.
“By the end of the year, we should have almost half of our patrol-focused fleet as Ford Explorer Interceptor hybrids,” he said.
The switch has reduced fuel and maintenance costs with minimal performance drawbacks, Dunlop said. Additionally, the older gas-powered vehicles needed to be replaced after three years, while the hybrids have a life span of up six years, he said.
“The hybrids do tend to have less maintenance required,” Dunlop said. “We’ve gone from an average of 8 to 10 miles per gallon in the Tahoes and we’ve almost doubled that for the hybrid vehicles, which average close to 16 miles per gallon.”
Dunlop acknowledged that the mileage is still not great, but it’s an improvement. He explained that DPD operates primarily in city limits, which involves frequent stop-and-go driving. Patrol officers also leave their engines idling during traffic enforcement or at scenes – which also reduces fuel efficiency.
“I focus more on the fact that we've pretty much doubled our fuel mileage,” he said.
According to Dunlop, in 2022, when the fleet was still primarily made up of internal combustion vehicles, the department spent $133,790 on fuel. In 2024, when they began transitioning to hybrids, fuel costs dropped to $102,075.
“For the first five months of 2025, we have spent approximately $32,186 of our $90,000 budget, so I’m comfortable saying that we project we will underspend this year as well,” Dunlop said.
The hybrid vehicles have taken some getting used to.
Dunlop said there is sometimes a split-second delay when pressing the accelerator from a dead stop because the hybrid motor does not idle and needs to restart. However, that has not led to any impact on officers’ ability to do their job, Dunlop said.
The department is still ironing out some kinks, Dunlop said.
The F-150s, for example, have needed frequent warranty maintenance due to faulty engine control modules and bugs in their internal computer systems. Additionally, supply chain issues have prolonged the time it takes to outfit the new hybrid Interceptors.
But Dunlop said the vehicles are a net improvement for the department.
Dunlop said the department has also begun testing two fully electric Chevrolet Blazer Police Pursuit Vehicles. The EVs are assigned to officers in investigative and administrative roles, not patrol duty. However, they have potential, he said.
“I've been driving one of the EVs off-and-on over the last six months, and it’s a very peppy vehicle,” he said. “I think that we could see, probably within the next five years, some fully patrol-used EVs.”
Dunlop said more testing is needed before the department can employ electric vehicles full-time. Though they have a range of nearly 300 miles, charging them takes time that the department may not have. But once the department figures out how to quickly charge the vehicles, he said, EVs could outperform traditional gas-powered vehicles.
“One of the biggest issues that we were concerned about is range anxiety,” he said. “But what I've come to find over the last six months is that it’s not really that big of a concern. If we keep them charged up, the performance of the vehicles is actually an improvement over traditional internal combustion, and the maintenance is almost nonexistent.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
