This week on Zooming with DRIVEN Damien tells us about the deal for Hyundai New Zealand to supply the New Zealand Police with electric vehicles.
Hyundai NZ will be supplying five 72kWh Ioniq 5s and 34 64kWh Kona Electrics to the police for for non-operational use at 15 locations around the country.
While this forms part of police plans to build an emission-free vehicle fleet within five years, it won't yet see all-electric fully-liveried frontline "Prime One" patrol cars (like in our mock up above), as the Hyundais will be for use by police support staff.
READ MORE
However, the move to fully-electric patrol cars won't be far off and, while Hyundai has made the first moves into supplying the police with BEVs, Skoda still seems the most likely to make it into the Prime One spot first.
Not only does the Volkswagen Group marque hold the contract to supply Prime One cars to the police (currently in the form of the Superb and Kodiaq SUV), but the all-electric Skoda Enyaq iV is already being used by police forces in Europe, with Skoda having the ability to supply the cars in full police-spec straight from the factory
NZ Police made the move to lower emission cars when the four-cylinder ZB Holden Commodore replaced the Australian-built V6 model in 2017, and then switched to the Skoda Superb following Holden’s demise in 2020.
Since Skoda took over supply, the police have tested a number of plug-in hybrid Superbs, but the fully-electric Enyaq iV won’t arrive here until sometime in 2023, having been delayed by the global semiconductor shortage. The Enyaq iV will come with a number of battery options ranging from a 55kWh version that offers a WLTP-tested range of 340km up to an 82kWh version that offers 460km.
You can check out the full episode of Zooming with DRIVEN where we discuss this, as well as the latest Gymkhana video (which is awesome!) and we start counting down our most popular stories of 2022.
You can also check out more DRIVEN videos on our YouTube channel or subscribe to the Zooming with DRIVEN podcast if you prefer your car-based entertainment in audio form for the daily commute!
