Michigan test archive
2016 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test
A four-cylinder patrol sedan, an electric motorcycle, and a three-wheeler that stops harder than anything Michigan has ever tested.
Fifteen vehicles and five motorcycles, and three of the entries would have been unthinkable in any earlier year of this archive.
The first is a four-cylinder police sedan. Ford entered the Police Interceptor with its 2.0-litre EcoBoost and front-wheel drive, and it did what a two-litre in a full-size saloon does: 8.58 seconds to 60, 21.86 to 100, a governed 121 mph, and the slowest lap of the test at 1:42.79. It also returned 19 mpg in the city, the best figure of any car here by two miles per gallon, which is exactly the argument it was submitted to make.
The second is a Zero DSP ZF12.5 — the first electric vehicle in this archive. It reached 60 mph in 6.89 seconds, never reached 100 at all, and topped out at 95 mph after 0.34 of a mile and 19.08 seconds. Every other machine in the test needed miles to find its maximum; the Zero found its in about a third of one, and then that was that.
The third is the Can-Am Spyder F3, and it set a record that has nothing to do with going fast. Across twenty stops it averaged 31.64 ft/s² — the highest deceleration rate ever recorded in these tests, by any vehicle on any number of wheels, and a computed 60-to-0 distance of about 122.4 feet.
The police category
| Vehicle | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | Top speed at | ¼ mile | Dynamics | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Caprice 6.0L RWD | 6.26 | 14.84 | 155 | 6.62 mi | 14.76 @ 99.84 | 1:37.17 | 29.81 | 129.9 |
| Ford PI Sedan EcoBoost AWD 3.5L | 6.17 | 14.58 | 150 | 7.58 mi | 14.60 @ 100.08 | 1:35.66 | 29.35 | 131.9 |
| Dodge Charger 5.7L (3.08 AWD) | 6.27 | 15.48 | 150 | 1.86 mi | 14.81 @ 97.83 | 1:36.12 | 30.12 | 128.6 |
| Dodge Charger 5.7L (2.62 RWD) | 6.48 | 15.55 | 150 | 13.28 mi | 14.86 @ 97.50 | 1:36.67 | 30.78 | 125.8 |
| Ford PI Utility EcoBoost AWD 3.5L | 6.63 | 16.67 | 132 | 1.33 mi | 15.08 @ 95.38 | 1:38.36 | 29.38 | 131.8 |
| Ford PI Sedan AWD 3.7L | 7.59 | 19.16 | 132 | 1.62 mi | 15.83 @ 91.03 | 1:38.10 | 28.94 | 133.8 |
| Chevrolet Impala 3.6L FWD | 7.81 | 19.45 | 150 | 3.68 mi | 16.10 @ 90.85 | 1:41.99 | 28.50 | 135.9 |
| Ford PI Sedan FWD 3.5L | 7.83 | 19.79 | 132 | 1.95 mi | 16.12 @ 91.10 | 1:38.65 | 29.41 | 131.7 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L RWD | 7.94 | 19.78 | 137 | 4.07 mi | 16.28 @ 90.63 | 1:41.11 | 28.60 | 135.4 |
| Dodge Charger 3.6L (2.62 RWD) | 8.04 | 20.65 | 141 | 6.78 mi | 16.20 @ 88.80 | 1:38.25 | 30.97 | 125.0 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L 4WD | 8.23 | 20.70 | 121 | 1.26 mi | 16.52 @ 88.99 | 1:41.19 | 28.56 | 135.6 |
| Dodge Charger 3.6L (3.08 RWD) | 8.26 | 21.10 | 142 | 11.78 mi | 16.37 @ 90.68 | 1:38.59 | 30.84 | 125.6 |
| Chevrolet Caprice 3.6L RWD | 8.27 | 20.29 | 146 | 7.91 mi | 16.38 @ 89.17 | 1:39.17 | 29.74 | 130.2 |
| Ford PI Utility AWD 3.7L | 8.34 | 21.65 | 132 | 2.14 mi | 16.38 @ 88.13 | 1:40.64 | 30.05 | 128.9 |
| Ford PI Sedan 2.0L EcoBoost FWD | 8.58 | 21.86 | 121 | 1.66 mi | 16.54 @ 87.42 | 1:42.79 | 28.75 | 134.7 |
Gold row: the Caprice 6.0 is back at 155 mph, against the 156 it recorded on retest in 2015, when the car had first run with an incorrect speed-limiting calibration. It is the fastest vehicle here by five miles an hour — though the EcoBoost Ford beat it to 60, to 100, and around the road course by a second and a half.
The new column is the most interesting thing the book has added in years. Michigan now records how far each vehicle had to run to reach its top speed, and the numbers are startling. The rear-drive HEMI Charger needed 13.28 miles of its 14-mile allowance to arrive at 150 mph; the 3.08-geared V6 Charger took 11.78 miles to reach 142. At the other end, the speed-limited vehicles get there almost immediately — the four-wheel-drive Tahoe hit its governed 121 mph after 1.26 miles. The column quietly distinguishes a car that is fast from a car that has simply been allowed to stop accelerating.
The braking order is unchanged and emphatic: all four Dodges sit between 125.0 and 128.6 feet and every Chevrolet and Ford sits above 128.9. The V6 Charger with the tall 2.62 axle stops shortest of the cars at a computed 125.0 feet.
The motorcycles
| Machine | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | ¼ mile | Dynamics | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW R 1200 RT-P | 4.42 | 9.94 | 137 | 12.65 @ 109.83 | 1:39.11 | 28.15 | 137.6 |
| Can-Am Spyder F3 | 5.34 | 14.83 | 121 | 14.13 @ 97.64 | 1:53.38 | 31.64 | 122.4 |
| Harley-Davidson Road King FLHP | 5.47 | 16.86 | 107 | 14.46 @ 93.38 | 1:48.60 | 26.02 | 148.8 |
| Harley-Davidson Electra Glide FLHTP | 5.97 | 21.01 | 109 | 14.73 @ 91.85 | 1:48.89 | 25.67 | 150.8 |
| Zero DSP ZF12.5 ABS (electric) | 6.89 | never reached | 95 | 15.38 @ 93.36 | 1:50.12 | 27.73 | 139.6 |
Gold row: the BMW’s 12.65-second quarter mile at 109.83 mph is the quickest and fastest quarter in this archive — one hundredth of a second ahead of the 2011 Kawasaki’s 12.66, and nearly two miles an hour faster through the traps. It reached 100 mph in 9.94 seconds and 110 in a sixth of a mile. Its top speed of 137 mph took 12.86 miles to find.
The Can-Am Spyder F3 is the record-holder that matters here: 31.64 ft/s², the best deceleration figure in the history of these tests, ahead of the 2015 Charger’s 31.04 and every car ever measured. It was also nearly fifteen seconds a lap slower than the BMW. Three wheels stop; they do not corner.
And the electric machine acquits itself better than the numbers suggest. The Zero is slowest to 60 and cannot reach 100 — but it out-brakes both Harleys by nine and eleven feet, and laps quicker than the Can-Am. Its most striking figure is the one about reaching top speed: 0.34 of a mile, in 19.08 seconds, and no further.
Ergonomics, communications and fuel
| Vehicle | Ergonomics & communications | City mpg |
|---|---|---|
| Dodge Charger | 230.41 | 17 (3.6) / 15 (5.7) |
| Chevrolet Tahoe | 225.17 | 16 |
| Ford Police Interceptor Utility | 222.99 | 15 |
| Chevrolet Caprice | 220.89 | 18 (3.6) / 15 (6.0) |
| Chevrolet Impala | 213.62 | 17 |
| Ford Police Interceptor sedan | 208.71 | 19 (2.0 EcoBoost) / 17 (3.5 FWD) / 16 (3.7 AWD) / 15 (3.5 EcoBoost) |
A sedan tops this column for the first time since 2002. The Charger’s 230.41 beats the Tahoe by five points, built on 9.38 for instrument clarity and steering wheel and 9.25 for the power window switch — the small controls, rather than the space. The Ford sedan finishes last for the third consecutive year, and the line that does it is unchanged: 5.38 for rear-seat entry and exit, against 7.63 for the Utility built on the same platform.
Note the fuel column for the Ford sedan, which now spans four engines from a 2.0-litre four to a twin-turbo 3.5 — 19 mpg city down to 15. That is a wide fuel spread within a single nameplate, though not the widest in this archive — the 2012 Caprice ran 18 against 11, and a fair summary of what “police sedan” had come to mean by 2016.
What 2016 settled
The category stopped having a shape. In one test Michigan measured a two-litre four-cylinder saloon, a 6.0-litre rear-drive V8, two turbocharged all-wheel-drive Fords, four Chargers with three different drivetrains, two Tahoes, a three-wheeler and a battery-electric motorcycle. There is no longer a typical police vehicle to compare the others against, which is precisely why a programme that measures everything the same way had become more useful than ever.
And two of the year’s three records went to vehicles that could not get out of their own way. The best braking figure ever recorded in these tests belongs to a Can-Am trike that was the slowest thing around the road course. The most economical car was the slowest one. Forty years of Michigan tables have shown that no vehicle wins every column — 2016 is the year the columns stopped even pointing in the same direction.