Alaska debuts new Dodge Durango cop cars despite Indiana’s hurdles

The APD, Anchorage Police Department in Alaska, has just taken delivery of its new fleet of Dodge Durangos.

Just like many other police departments across the US, the APD had to give its patrol fleet a refresh.

Also, just like other police departments, they turned to Dodge.

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The APD was able to secure 48 new Dodge Durango patrol vehicles thanks to the Anchorage Municipality and also thanks to Senator Lisa Murkowski, who was able to contribute with a $2 million grant.

As Police Chief Sean Case explained, as reported by Alaska’s News Source, this was long overdue.

“When we started this process of ordering cars, about 50 percent of our fleet was over 100,000 miles or 10 years old. We have officers driving around in 2009 Chevy Impalas,” Case said.

These 48 Durangos cost the APD around $5 million in total, but it’s money well spent because those vehicles are perfect for the weather changes in the state of Alaska.

Hopefully they won’t have reliability issues like the Indiana State Police did.

The weather in Alaska is the reason they’re going to need more

Capt. Josh Nolder of the APD said this is just the start, and they need more.

“We need more vehicles,” Nolder said.

“When we deal with the weather changes in the state of Alaska, ideally you would turn your fleet over in that five to seven years, no more than 100,000 miles,” Nolder concluded.

It never gets too hot in Anchorage but it does get pretty cold in the winter, not to mention it rains and snows quite often, sometimes unpredictably.

Cars don’t really love that.

In that respect, cars are a bit like people, as in they can cope (just) with extreme temperatures better than they can cope with drastic weather changes over a short period of time.

What do American police officers drive?

Almost with no exception, American police officers drive American cars.

No surprise there, but what might be surprising is the sheer number of different vehicles and brands they use.

Pick a model made by Ford, Chevrolet, Ram or Dodge, and there’s a very strong change it’s been used as a police vehicle at least once.

And then of course there’s Tesla.

Several police departments across the US are turning to Tesla, and some are even adding the Cybertruck to their fleet, just like the Dubai police did.

Tesla is very happy to oblige and there are already third-party companies that are modifying Cybertrucks to make them more apt for police work.

And it helps that it looks cool, too.