The all-electric Hyundai Kona has been chosen by Swiss police for a new fleet of police cars in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen.
A total of 13 Hyundai Kona Electrics are now a part of the force in the eastern region of Switzerland, five of which have been covered in Swiss police livery and will be used for patrol duties, while the other eight will be used for non-patrol duties.
The Hyundai Kona Electric, which offers up to 480km driving range, was reportedly chosen for meeting all the requirements demanded by the St. Gallen department for electric vehicles.
According to Autoblog, these included costing under 50,000 Swiss francs (around $A75,000 at today’s rates), delivering over 100kW power and having a range of more than 400 kilometres.
Announcing the St. Gallen department’s new fleet via Facebook, Hyundai shared some photos of the its cars in their new livery:
The decision to include Kona Electrics as part of the Swiss fleet flies in the face of a general trend in Switzerland which is seeing the average fuel consumption of new vehicles on the rise.
According to Swiss news site Le News, the average new car in 2018 consumed on average 6.08 litres per 100km compared to 5.87 litres the year before.
While the canton of Geneva has put in place a plan to ban diesel vehicles from its city centre, and the country as a whole has banned sales of certain diesel vehicles made by Mercedes-Benz and Porsche due to skirting emissions rules, its nationwide electric vehicle target of 15% EVs by 2022 is far from ambitious.
The nation is far behind neighbours when it comes to EV market share, with approximately 3.2% of all cars sold in the country in 2018 being plug-in electric according to Climate Action Tracker.
As police cars, electric vehicles have an advantage over internal combustion engine (ICE) cars; with their instant torque they more often than not have superior acceleration power compared to ICE equivalents – the Hyundai Kona Electric can accelerate from 0-100km/hr in around 7 seconds according to Inside EVs.
In June, police in the southern state of Victoria, Australia, also chose to add an electric vehicle to its fleet – a five-seater Tesla Model X, which can accelerate from 0-100km.hr in less than five seconds.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.