Why Ford Dominates The Market For Police Vehicles

there are about 12 000 police departments patrolling jurisdictions across the united states and more than half of those police vehicles driving through neighborhoods and cities are fords the second largest u.s automaker in terms of sales is also the biggest purveyor of police vehicles so it's you know it's not a huge portion of ford's business but you know it's generally considered um a fairly important part of the business you know particularly because it's an area that they they have dominated for a long time you know going back at least you know into the mid 1990s automakers don't release detailed share and sales numbers for their law enforcement fleets but ford claims it has about two-thirds of the market much of the rest is made up by the other two detroit automakers general motors the largest u.s car maker and fiat chrysler a large part of ford's share belongs to the ford police interceptor utility which ford says is the best-selling police vehicle in america and alone accounts for half of all new police vehicles sold the interceptor utility is based on the ford explorer the best-selling suv of all time in america the success of the interceptor utility and the introduction of similar vehicles like it from its closest competitors show how u.s police departments around the country are making some of the same changes to their fleets that ordinary customers are making in their own garages specifically police cars are now increasingly police suvs and there are some pretty practical reasons why this is happening there are several types of typical police vehicles used by departments there are patrol cars unmarked cars special purpose vehicles such as vans sport utility vehicles and trucks and motorcycles many police departments have even acquired military equipment in recent years which has fueled controversy but the vast majority of police vehicles are basically modified versions of those bought by the common consumer police departments buy their vehicles according to a pretty standard government purchasing process though the details can vary depending on the size of the department or other circumstances typically a department determines how many vehicles it needs and then solicits bids from at least three dealers contracts usually go to the lowest bid there are some exceptions such as hard to find vehicles only available from a single source for a long time police drove mostly sedans outfitted to suit the needs of law enforcement officers the earliest known motorized police vehicle was an electric car deployed in akron ohio in 1899. it had a maximum speed of 18 miles per hour and could travel 30 miles on a charge the vehicle was specially designed by the collins buggy company a local coach builder with a cost of two thousand hundred 400 it came equipped with a siren gong lights and a stretcher it was first used to pick up an intoxicated man in the city later it was pushed into the ohio canal during orion until the mid 20th century police cars were either specially built vehicles or ordinary cars custom fitted with aftermarket upgrades but in 1950 ford saw an opportunity in serving the police market and became the first automaker to offer a dedicated police package the company debuted the interceptor name in 1951. its strategy took off quickly by 1961 ford cars made up 58 of police vehicles in use in the 50 largest u.s cities ford's american competitors had taken notice and began offering their own police packages and at different times in history even controlled the market chrysler in particular dominated from about 1969 to 1985 mostly through its plymouth and dodge brands all the chrysler divisions chrysler and plymouth and dodge had a real strong showing in the world of police vehicles for a long time i think chrysler corporation presented themselves as a high performance company very effectively in that time in history and i think that appealed to the police departments and that's why they were able to score so many of the police contracts during that time in 1983 ford introduced an interceptor version of its crown victoria a large spacious sedan that was also a popular choice for taxi cab drivers there was also a police package for the mustang which ran from the early 1980s to the early 1990s another popular sedan was the chevrolet caprice which at one point was outfitted with a corvette engine and was a leading choice from 1986 until the caprice was discontinued in 1996. the chevy caprice was the car choice that kind of we referred to as like a spaceship looking kind of bubble police car um that just really took over um because of its speed you know it had a corvette engine if if uh you had the right package and beefed up suspension and had a lot of room in it um and and the belief with all this size and extra metal around it that it would be safer when you get into a car accident for much of that time departments did own suvs and pickup trucks but they tended to be special purpose vehicles not used for patrolling but as americans overall began ditching their sedans and coops for sport utilities and crossovers police badged suvs started popping up throughout the country changes in vehicle manufacturing made them more popular as patrol vehicles one issue that led to the switch some police say is that passenger cars started shrinking at the same time departments began stuffing police vehicles with ever greater amounts of equipment and technology cars got smaller particularly the interior some of that had to do with fuel efficiency some of that had to do with uh safety right we built to absorb but crash a little better but when they they began to shrink in the interior um at the same time we're putting more equipment in police cars before it was maybe a radar unit on the dashboard um and then that was it then we started to put partitions between the front seats and the rear seats all this equipment's going in the interior of a car at the same time sedans of police vehicles are shrinking compared to those in the 80s and early 90s suvs seemed to better meet the need for increased interior space and offered other advantages such as ease of entry and exit however suvs do have their drawbacks and it comes down mostly to a question of physics the key advantage of traditional passenger cars such as sedans is that their shape gives them a lower center of gravity than an suv or truck and makes them more aerodynamic an suv's size and shape makes it more likely to roll over and generally tougher to handle than a comparable sedan this is potentially a problem for cops who need to drive at high speeds whether in pursuit of a suspect or in response to an emergency but there have been many changes to vehicle design and engineering even for consumer vehicles that have greatly improved both driving experience and fuel economy for sport utilities sport utility vehicles used to be built the way pickup trucks still are the body of the car the roof doors side panels and so on was bolted onto the frame that housed the wheels drivetrain and other engineering components that made the car move this is called body-on-frame construction and actually for most of automotive history all cars were made this way but manufacturing innovations led to the introduction of unibody construction where the frame and the body are part of a single hole this type of manufacturing was first common on passenger cars while sport utility vehicles and pickups retained the body-on-frame approach but over time manufacturers began making suvs and in some cases pickups with unibody construction unibody construction offers several advantages it can make vehicles lighter easier to handle and even safer since it can better absorb crash impacts so today many suvs such as the explorer are made with unibody construction and drive more like cars in spite of their different shapes and sizes the key word is more like cars there are still some differences they are still taller and have a higher center of gravity for years it was um the purpose of having a sedan was that you could they hug the road a little better and and the possibility of a rollover was much less compared to an suv that's the sway bars and things um within the vehicle that that the manufacturers have put in there for law enforcement helps with that but you know the ford explorer does not pursue the same as a ford sedan police car they just don't operate the same way so automakers tune their police suvs differently than those sold to consumers for example vehicles such as the ford police interceptor utility the chevrolet tahoe police pursuit vehicle and the dodge durango pursuit sit lower on their wheels than the comparable consumer versions and they have specially tuned suspensions and brakes to improve agility and handle the several hundred pounds of extra equipment in the vehicle the other trouble with suvs and big vehicles in general is that they tend to burn a lot of fuel in october 2019 ford said orders for its hybrid version of the interceptor utility already comprised 19 of total orders for the 2020 model which had been revealed that previous january the company said it is the first pursuit rated hybrid vehicle the hybrid gets a combined 24 miles per gallon of gas that may seem modest given what some vehicles are able to achieve in 2020 but it is a 41 improvement over the current police interceptor utility equipped with a conventional 3.7 liter gasoline engine at the time ford estimated departments could save three thousand five hundred dollars to five thousand seven hundred dollars per vehicle annually in fuel costs that is based on a range of fuel prices from 2.75 cents to 4.50 per gallon and an average of 20 000 miles driven in a year for large departments this can save a tremendous amount of money for example the new york city police department has 36 000 officers making it the largest local police force in the united states in 2019 the nypd said it aimed to make all of its 10 000 cars hybrid or electric within five years all cop cars suv or otherwise come with standard upgrades that make them better suited to perform at high speeds and improve their durability these are vehicles that are heavily used every day for the two to three years they are usually in service one of the modifications they make on some of them is actually changing the hinge design on those doors to allow them to open wider they did this on the taurus and the explorer to allow the particularly the rear doors to open up at a wider angle to make it easier to get people in and out of the rear seat of those vehicles so that's that's one of the the practical changes and they also do things like upgrade upgrading the cooling systems and the brakes you know to deal with that different duty cycle that that those vehicles go through during the course of a day compared to what regular consumers have to deal with the improved cooling systems keep engines from overheating and high output alternators handle power demands that come with running lights radios and a cabin full of computer equipment as with many cop cars the seats on the interceptor utility are specially made with smaller bolsters on the sides to make it easier for officers to get in and out of the vehicle seat backs have anti-stab plates on them to prevent people in the back seat from well stabbing officers in the back there are also bulletproof panels on the sides of the vehicle and a beefed up rear end to protect it from collisions at high speeds a lot of the lighting radio and computer systems and even the grille guards are installed by third party manufacturers but some models now come stock with low profile lighting systems that are integrated into the vehicle's visor rear spoiler and grille to improve visibility there have also been many other recent innovations you know the new police cars with the connectivity you know in the dispatch center we could look on a on a map and see where all the cars are at the same at one time as the dispatcher is entering the information it is looking for based on the address the closest vehicle that can respond there are now cameras in cars that record not only the activity in the car itself but also what is happening in front of the vehicle in addition to the cameras that we have now in police cars you know we can stream that image real life like real time so in a dispatch center i can see what the cop can see on his or her dashboard right now so building collapse robbery whatever it may be as vehicles pull up that data can stream so police cars actually have their own modems in so the back end technology in these police cars is really impressive in 2020 ford put a system in the interceptor called police perimeter alert motion sensors monitor a 270 degree area that extends up to 80 feet away if the system detects something it turns on the vehicle's rear camera audibly alerts the passengers rolls up the vehicle's windows and locks the doors officers inside can watch their surroundings via motion trails displayed on instrument panels cars are also becoming pandemic ready ford debuted a software update in 2020 that raises a vehicle's cabin temperature to 133 degrees fahrenheit for 15 minutes the idea is to basically sterilize any surfaces that may have been exposed to the coronavirus fleet sales make up a relatively small share of an automaker's total but some police say ford has a pretty long history of serving law enforcement which might partly explain the police interceptor's popularity the explorer might have also benefited from some good luck in the transition from cars to suvs the interceptor utility seemed to hit a perfect sweet spot it was bigger than the cars on offer at the time but smaller than the other available police suvs chevrolet touts the advantages of a larger vehicle saying the tahoe has 70 cubic feet of cargo storage in the back more than 18 feet over the next largest competitor the interceptor utility also has some key stats in its favor for example tests done by the michigan state police determined it was the fastest vehicle of its class to be sure it is not the only player in the market and its position is by no means secure even after the police interceptor utility was introduced in 2012 some sedans continued to sell well such as the dodge charger due in part to large contracts with big agencies such as the california highway patrol and ford's competitors general motors and fiat chrysler offer police packages for several of their trucks and suvs too in 2019 interceptor utility sales were 18 752 down 44.6 percent from the 33 839 sold in 2018. they were up 2.3 percent in 2018 over 2017. finally police in america have come under serious fire from critics many of whom are calling for reform and some of whom are calling for defunding law enforcement or outright abolition according to a report from car blog jalopnik a group of ford employees circulated a letter asking the company to reconsider its manufacture of police vehicles and employees have brought up the issue in other venues the employees cited concerns over the ford name being associated with police at a time when officers are being criticized for the ways they treat black americans in response ceo jim hackett circulated a memo where he acknowledged he has been asked by people inside and outside the company to end ford's police vehicle program in the memo hackett condemned racism expressed support for the black lives matter movement and said he is reviewing ford's diversity and inclusion practices yet he also said it is uncontroversial to sell vehicles to police that the criticisms plaguing police have nothing to do with the cars they drive and that law enforcement plays an important role in the vitality and safety of society ford was not available for an on-camera interview for this story but told cnbc the drop in sales in 2019 was due to the changeover to a redesigned interceptor utility the company added that it expected interceptor utility sales for the third quarter of 2020 to be high with respect to the employee letter ford said ceo jim hackett's response speaks for itself and you know these conventional police vehicles are not really the issue it's more the the bigger issue is the military militarization of police forces and you know giving them you know surplus military vehicles you know armored vehicles you know that's that's a much bigger issue than you know whether they're driving around in ford explorers or dodge chargers or you know any other you know conventional vehicle minneapolis city council recently voted to disband its police force and new york is reportedly taking steps to cut about one billion dollars from its six billion dollar budget police department budgets all over the country are potentially at risk which poses serious questions for the companies that supply them you

Channel: CNBC

Views: 2,447,843

Rating: 4.7383013 out of 5

Keywords: CNBC, business, news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, Stock market news, stocks, top gear, motortrend channel, chrisfix, doug demuro, carwow, scotty kilmer

Id: MWgFeCSvsmI

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Halloween_Cake]

My question is why do masons only drive Ford/Lincoln?

[u/Drando_HS]

Can't watch the video, but let me take a guess...

• previous experience with the highly successful Crown Vic

• pretty durable vehicles at a lower price than competitors

• made a good SUV platform just in time for a shift to SUV-based police fleets

• American company

Was I right?

[u/[deleted]]

Here is my list of police interceptors I would love to see

Mini Cooper S, Hyundai Sonata, and Chevy Trax

[u/Jdea7hdealer]

Any quick summary?

I'm curious, but I don't watch vids.

[u/WabbitCZEN]

Ford has contracts to provide police vehicles.

​

There, saved you from watching a stupid video.

[u/ChrisPnCrunchy]

I can't watch the video right now but is there any source to actually support the claim that Ford is "dominating" the market for police vehicles?

The use of 'dominating' in this title reminds me of how news headlines are always saying " so-and-so SLAMS so-and-so for ___".

[u/LionSlicer13]

Does it though? Pretty much all Tahoes in my area.