Two electric vehicles will be added to the Denver Police Department fleet, using money from the city’s climate fund.
The two electric vehicles, a Chevy Blazer PPV and a Chevy Silverado EV e4WD, will be used as a test for EVs in the police fleet. The vehicles will be used for the “full range of DPD operations.”
The vehicles will cost about $280,000, including upfitting the vehicles for police service, as well as training and maintenance costs.
The funds will come from the Climate Protection Fund, which voters created after passing a ballot initiative in 2020. The local sales and use tax was raised by 0.25 percentage points, or 25 cents per $100, to create the fund.
Denver City Council approved the purchase on Monday. Through the process, Councilmember Shontel Lewis objected to the use of the Climate Protection Fund and argued that DPD could use its own department budget.
“DPD is able to draw from a whole host of funds when it comes to fleet replacement,” Councilmember Lewis said at a March 3 meeting. “In contrast, the funding source that they would be drawing from is the Climate Protection Fund, which has six allowable uses.”
When the proposal was initially introduced to City Council, a staff member with CASR said the police department specifically approached CASR to use the Climate Protection Fund instead of their own fleet replacement fund due to concerns that electric vehicles wouldn’t sufficiently replace gas-powered vehicles that need to be phased out of service.
