Fleet profile
the increase by redeploying existing vehicles effectively, eliminating the need for additional cars,” Sykes says.
The fleet team reviews the 30 most- and least- used vehicles each month to ensure maximum value from each asset. Telematics also provides real-time feedback to drivers, encouraging smoother driving to reduce wear and fuel consumption. Beyond location tracking, telematics gives insight into vehicle usage patterns, including time spent at key locations. This data helps identify which vehicles are best suited for transitioning to electric, factoring in charging logistics and idle times. “Telematics is not just about tracking; it’s about futureproofing,” says Sykes.
Funding the future
The biggest challenge for the Cheshire Police fleet, and many others, isn’t operating EVs, but funding the transition. The upfront cost of EVs is higher than traditional vehicles, but the real barrier is the infrastructure needed to run them.
With over 30 sites across Cheshire, many in older buildings – such as Victorian police stations – upgrading to handle modern charging infrastructure is costly. “The existing electricity supply can’t cope with the increased load, and upgrading it is a major undertaking,” says Sykes. To address this, the fleet uses telematics data to analyse vehicle usage patterns and identify the best locations for chargers. “It helps us make smarter decisions about where to install chargers and manage charging schedules,” he adds. However, the real hurdle is financial. “There’s
simply not a pot of money waiting to fund this transition,” Sykes explains. “We can manage EVs, but without investment in infrastructure, the shift to electric will remain our biggest challenge.” The fleet currently operates a mix of diesel, petrol, hybrids, and a small number of EVs. The next batch of response vehicles will be another 60 hybrids to add to last year’s 60 new hybrids, replacing older diesel models, a positive step toward electrification.
Despite the UK government’s 2030 ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles, manufacturers are already moving towards electrification. “The timeline has shifted multiple times, but manufacturers were already planning for this,” says Sykes.
“While the government originally set a 2030 phase-out date, with a five-year extension for hybrids, the previous government tried to push ICE back to 2035, and then the current one moved it forward again to 2030. But to be honest, manufacturers didn’t really take much notice – they were already following global strategies to electrify their fleets. So we’re already seeing a drop in the availability of the types of high-performance vehicles we’d traditionally buy for police use.” The transition to EVs for Cheshire Police will be gradual, with the force testing demonstrator vehicles and collaborating with other forces. Sykes points to Police Scotland and British Transport Police as examples of successful EV integration. He says, “Police Scotland has around 1,000 EVs, and we’ve learned a lot from their learning journey. They’ve helped us understand how to
“We can manage EVs, but without investment in
infrastructure, the shift to electric will remain our biggest challenge.”
20 | May/June 2025 |
www.businesscar.co.uk
build out the infrastructure and manage charging for an emergency fleet.”
Despite the hurdles, Sykes believes EVs are suited to policing. “The nature of our driving lends itself to EVs, once we’ve got the charging sorted. And from a return-on-investment perspective, the biggest gains will come from our most-used vehicles – our marked response cars. Those are the ones flying around the county answering 999 calls. They burn through the most fuel, so switching them would give us the biggest benefit. “But even if everything stayed exactly as it is, I don’t believe we’d be allocated the necessary budget to replace our existing ICE vehicles,” says Sykes. “The cost of outright purchasing electric vehicles, combined with the infrastructure required to support them, makes it incredibly difficult.” Although the force applies for funding every year to replace vehicles, it increasingly has to make what it has last longer. “It’s a constant balancing act – evaluating whether a vehicle can be stretched another 12 months, whether it’s still safe, and whether it’s cost-effective. That’s been our reality for the past five years, and it’s now part of our ongoing process.”
Beyond that, Sykes explains Cheshire Police has its own internal continuous improvement initiatives, including something it calls Fleet Forward. “We’re always looking at how to improve – not just in how we manage the fleet, but how we run our workshops. We set four priorities for the workshops each year: first is health and safety, second is quality standards and culture, third is performance, and fourth is whatever major project we’re tackling that year. “And we’re always pushing to improve, even if it’s just by 1% or 0.5% at a time. It’s the marginal gains approach – small improvements that build over time, over a hundred changes so far. That mindset drives everything we do.”
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