Yet Another Stakeout: Ford Positions Its Plug-in Fusion As the Cure for Idling Cops

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

If Lennie Briscoe were alive today, it’s hard to say how the fictional .38-packing NYPD detective would view this break from tradition. He might dryly wonder aloud whether the force faced an easier time cleaning up its fleet than cleaning up the streets, and went with the path of least resistance.

Nevertheless, as the era of the electric police car is already tentatively here, Ford figured it was probably a good time to give detectives, agents, and other plainclothed types their own plug-in option. The automaker has announced a plug-in hybrid version of its Fusion sedan specifically targeted at government and police.

Never has rolling up to that warehouse near the docks been accomplished with such stealth.

The Special Service Plug-In Hybrid Sedan, as Ford calls it, it essentially a Ford Fusion Energi with plenty of law enforcement add-ons. It comes less than a year after the introduction of the Fusion Hybrid as a pursuit-rated police vehicle.

There’s no highway patrol duty in this rig’s future, however. When it becomes available next summer, Ford hopes police departments and government agencies snap it up for users who might spend most of their day sitting on a perp, staking out a hangout, examining a crime scene, or just performing daily urban drudgery. Basically, the section of the fleet doing the most idling and the least driving.

Like its civilian sibling, this special service sedan sports a 7.6-kilowatt-hour battery pack and the ability to drive up to 21 miles (and reach speeds of 85 miles per hour) on electric power alone. Ford feels that’s sufficient to boast of potential gas-free workdays. Once the battery exhausts its charge, the vehicle operates as a conventional hybrid, further padding its green bona fides.

“Anyone can plug this in to any wall outlet to run gas- and emissions-free on battery-only operation,” said Stephen Tyler, Ford’s police brand marketing manager, in a statement.

Given the piles of taxpayer cash that flows into precincts each year, adding green vehicles to law enforcement fleets provides a PR boost to both police departments and mayors. However, top brass in both of these worlds would prefer to tell you about the decreased tailpipe emissions, cleaner urban air quality, and annual gasoline savings. As for Ford, the automaker isn’t about to let its already overwhelming 63-percent law enforcement market share dwindle. (The Blue Oval recently offered up its F-150 for police duty.)

Standard on the cop variant of Ford’s Fusion Plug-in Hybrid are front seats with reduced bolsters (thereby making the sit-and-wait lifestyle more comfortable), anti-stab plates for when the stakeout reached its successful conclusion, vinyl rear seats and flooring, and many mounting plates for lights, computers and other gear. If the car’s owners expect it to see plenty of action, there’s a spotlight, trunk storage vault, trunk ventilation system, and rear door control-disabling feature available as an option. Operators can also dim the whole package with a go-dark button for lights-free stealth.

While fleet sales don’t generate the kind of profit automakers boast about, having civilian green car fans see the Fusion Plug-in in a hard-edged role won’t curt. Certainly, Ford’s Fusion Energy needs the boost.

U.S. Fusion Energi sales sank 46 percent in October, year-over-year, with the tally over the first 10 months of 2017 coming in 38.4 percent lower than the same period last year.

[Image: Ford Motor Company]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • EBFlex EBFlex on Nov 21, 2017

    Makes sense. If nobody buys them at retail prices, fleet dump them to try and recover some of the investment. City garages will love working on them too.

  • Reuleaux Reuleaux on Nov 21, 2017

    Can the battery run the AC and heat? If not, or not for long, I don't really see the point.

    • Scoutdude Scoutdude on Nov 22, 2017

      Yes that is the point of this over the standard hybrid, both have electric AC compressors but the plug in adds a resistive heater to provide battery powered heat. Once the plug-in range has been depleted it will work as the regular hybrid and cycle the engine on and off as needed to recharge the battery and keep a minimum level of heat in the engine. Depending on how extreme the temps are it might run 10-20% of the time. Last winter I got stuck in our Escape Hybrid for about a hour and a half when and the temps were in the low 30's. Lights, wipers, radio, heater set on 70 and I saw the range drop only 4 miles in all that time.

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
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