Should fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars be required to be converted over to hybrid technology?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

No they should not. Fire trucks and ambulances run on diesel because it is optimal for the truck idling for several hours at the scene of a fire and for hauling all the weight of a fire vehicle or ambulance. Police cars are high performance vehicles designed to pursue and overtake almost any other vehicle on the road. Hybrid and alternative fuels are not good for high performance vehicles. All these vehicles are high performance and are designed specifically to carry out a specific task. Switching to hybrid technology and alternative fuels could cause problems with vehicle performance. Why fix it if its not broken?

I can't speak for fire trucks and police cars, but I know that ambulances are heavy vehicles that are expected to be able to be on the road 24 hours a day. A hybrid engine can't support such a heavy vehicle, and gas mileage is the least of our worries as tax payers pay for our fuel. The number of people who have trust in hybrid technology and alternate fuels is small. That is because no car has been made with hybrid technology that is worth buying. When they make a heavy high preformance vehicle using hybrid technology then it may be considered.

Source(s):

EMT

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

Good answer but I am sure that sooner or later the environmentalists are going to start messing with the life & safety oriented vehicles.

Answer 2

What's the point? They will still show their gas bills as enormous and that excess money will go into some hiden account for some clandestine govt. project.

Answer 3

Required, no, encouraged, yes.

Answer 4

Good question. Police cars probably need the extra power, so hybrid engines may not be the answer. But all other civic vehicles, including fire trucks, ambulances, garbage trucks, mail trucks, utility vehicles, and buses that don't already run on other alternative fuel sources, should be converted to hybrid technology. It just makes sense.

Answer 5

yes when they become more powerfull (at least keep in site of a 600 ninja) go up steep hills full of water (san fran. hills)etc.

Answer 6

Actually, I think that fuel cell technology would be better if they can reduce the costs.

Answer 7

no,... Because most of those types of vehicles require a lot of load bearing power, Fire Trucks alone weigh over 5 ton on the average.

Have you noticed what kinds of vehicles are made with hybrid tech? They are undersized, light weights. Even the high end market Lexus 450H is a light weight.

Law Enforcement and Public Service vehicles will be the last ones to be converted to environmentally friendly sources of power. Because, when there is an emergency or a clamity, which would you rather have respond to just such an emergency. A fully equiped prepared for just about anything gas burner, or an Under equiped, not designed for emergency services hybrid.
A gas/diesel burner will probably save your life or even your home. Because its dependable tech that supports the infrastructure for the civiliziaton that You depend upon to give you your standards of living quality.

Cheers !!!

Answer 8

Not until somebody actually has demonstrated a hybrid automotive drivetrain that is suitable for a vehicle of that weight and capable of holding up for hundreds of thousands of miles. At present, I'm not aware of any such thing on the market with a proven track record. It would be a major disaster if a city spent millions on such conversions only to find their ambulances were worn out by 30,000 miles.

Answer 9

Many police departments are already converting their fleets over to hybrid or other alternative fuel technology.

The London police just made headlines by ordering 117 Honda Civic Hybrids, adding to the 90+ Prius that they already have. So far, they're mainly used for non-patrol duty (such as bringing foot patrol from the station to the start of their routes). They've got some of the Lexus RX400h on trial for testing as full emergency response units, as well. (The Lexus models are more tuned for performance than for fuel economy, so have more HP and torque than a regular gasoline model.)

There have been many Prius used for local police and sherriff's offices in the US for a number of years now. Wyatt Earp of a Florida sheriff's office has been a big promoter for a while. They've been used for getting/issuing warrants, and other non-patrol work.

(Many state governments require the state vehicle fleet to be some percentage non-gasoline vehicles, so you'll see a lot of NGV or flex-fuel vehicles in the fleets. Unfortunately, these laws push out hybrids (use gasoline) in favor of flex-fuel vehicles (can run E85) when there are no E85 fueling stations in the state! (see MA for an example).)

I haven't yet heard of a way to convert an existing vehicle over to a hybrid. The only way for a municipality to "convert" would be to buy new hybrids to replace existing vehicles in their fleet when the existing vehicles are retired.

I think the bigger need would be to have the mail/package delivery services (USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc.) convert over to a vehicle that at minimun uses idle-stop, but... UPS did have a few test vehicles, but I never heard what became of them...

Source(s):

lots of news articles - try Google