Finance Committee - 11/20/2019 Page 10
Some of the tactical nuances, while the hybrid has slightly better gas mileage there are up costs up front and
there would be some up costs for maintenance upkeep potentially which | can have Mr. Sojka talk about if you
would like.
Alderwoman Kelly
| am interested from a perspective of | understand you have a job to do but we are working on trying to be
more economical from an energy and efficiency perspective. So if there is a possibility to get us to a hybrid at
some point, | mean you guys have a large fleet. So it would make an impact.
Brian Sojka, Nashua Police Department Supervisor
Brian Sojka, Nashua Police Department Supervisor. Doing some research on the hybrids, the hybrid actually
has an 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty on those batteries. We keep our unmarked between 10, 12 years in that
area if not a little bit longer. Once the vehicle does come out of warranty, we would be responsible to replace
those batteries and that is a big part of that vehicle. At this time, pricing of that battery would cost us roughly
$3,700.00 including another 4 hours of install from the dealership because these batteries are huge in these
vehicles, so they are heavy to put in. So we looked at that too besides the price difference of the vehicle. You
know maybe in the future if prices start going down we could look at that.
Alderwoman Kelly
Sure and if | could follow up. Yeah as you were saying we are still refining hybrid-ability and solar and all that
stuff is starting to become more commonplace and get a little more streamlined. So maybe we can look at it in
the future when it is not going to be a heavy financial burden.
Chairman O’Brien
To follow up on Alderwoman Kelly’s question though, | know these are going to be not actually first line, | know
they are going to be unmarked vehicles and everything and not going to go through the rigors that a regular
patrol vehicle would go through. But they do have the potential to be a patrol vehicle as you had said in the
case of an accident. How do hybrids actually do as a patrol vehicle? | Know some of your vehicles run hot 24
hours with the different shifts, they don’t really take a breather too much.
Brian Sojka, Nashua Police Department Supervisor
This is the first year Ford ever has come out with a Police Package Hybrid. They have never done it on the
utility before. So it is really early at this point to see how they are going to hold up. The challenge is the price
difference on the two vehicles, but how will they actually hold up? | can’t give you that answer at this point.
Will the battery be able to handle what the vehicles are requiring from it and how long will it last for the amount
of time that we use? They do a lot of idling time so | guess at this point we can look at in the future and see
how Fords are holding up at this point. But like | said, this is the first year they are coming out with that vehicle,
so really nobody has that answer at this point, except for Ford.
Chairman O’Brien
For Alderwoman Kelly’s concerns which is a good idea to get the planet greener, it might be something to
watch. | always stay away from the first model year of anything that | purchase, let somebody else figure out
its problems. Chief Testaverde did you want to say something?
Deputy Chief Testaverde
Yes Mr. Chair | was going to echo what you just actually said. Because of that the utility vehicle that we are
currently using, we’ve had for about 5 years now and it has been tested.
