Almost a year ago, the Owl was having a nice chat with the now-retired Police Chief Goulding about the new hybrid Ford Explorer police vehicle and the Chief mentioned his hope to have an EV (electric vehicle, in case you were born yesterday) in Weston soon. While I was pretty sure that a Tesla would be the obvious choice for Weston, apparently I and Elon Musk lose, and the Weston Police have themselves a brand new Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV to swan about in. Oh and swan about behind your speeding vehicle too. Yikes.

Delivered two weeks ago, the Mach-E pictured above now has its new fancy stickers on and is ready to rumble. Literally. The Mach-E has a fun “unbridled” mode with “enhanced sounds” and orange ambient lighting (?? who are these Ford engineers?). This mode is perfect for chasing horses down the fire roads of Highland. Apparently, the preferred mode is “whisper”, however, so they can whisper up all un-obtrusive-like with blue ambient lighting and “a balance of excitement and comfort, with in-vehicle sounds to enhance the experience.” (extraneous comment: what in-vehicle sounds enhance an experience? Who are these Ford marketing people? I detect Michigan Business School, hahaha, go Blue!).

Lt. Mike Forti was the one to bring the car back to the station and he explained its future use: “The car will be driven on a rotational basis–likely the shift supervisors will be using it during the day and evening.  We will see how people like it, what works, what doesn’t work, etc.  The aim is to start to get officers comfortable with some of the new technology and look to expand our fleet to include more EVs as soon as practical. “

The Mach-E was purchased and outfitted using funding that was already in place for replacement cruisers, and instead of getting all typical SUVs, the Weston Police Department is doing the environment good and elected to try this new EV with an eye to the future. The other police vehicle purchases were two Explorer Hybrids, or “Police Interceptor Utility” (PIU, pronounced “pew” as in Pepe Le Pew) as the technical name.  The town will be getting a $7,500 rebate back from the State’s MassEVIP program.  In the end, this very cool car actually cost us less than a new traditional Police Explorer SUV. 

I would say I was looking forward to a ride in it…but that probably would not be a good thing. Great work to Weston’s finest for taking care of public safety and our climate. See you around, Mach-E.