Michigan test archive
2025 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test
For the first time in the programme’s history, not one sedan was tested — and the quickest vehicle in the field runs on batteries.
Eleven vehicles and three motorcycles, and the entry list marks the end of something. There is no police sedan. Not a Charger, not a Ford, not anything. Michigan’s field is two Tahoes, two Silverado pickups, two Durangos, three Police Interceptor Utilities, an F-150 — and a Chevrolet Blazer EV. In forty-eight model years of these books there has never been a test without a four-door saloon in it.
The Blazer is the first battery-electric police vehicle in this archive, and it did not arrive as a curiosity. With 498 horsepower and 571 lb-ft from a 105 kWh pack, it reached 60 mph in 5.08 seconds — more than a second quicker than anything else in the test — 100 mph in 11.23, ran 130 mph, and recorded the shortest stop of the year at a computed 128.2 feet. It is also the heaviest vehicle here at 5,870 lb, and its 297-mile range and 89 MPGe city figure are numbers this programme has never had a column for.
Michigan also had to invent a way to test it, and says so. The Precision Driving Unit and the manufacturers had been in discussions about testing battery electric vehicles for three years. All three manufacturers agreed on roughly forty minutes of charging between runs as the fairest representation of a best-case scenario, using a 47 kW charger. The dynamics table for the Blazer therefore carries two columns no other vehicle in this archive has ever needed: the battery state of charge at the beginning and end of each eight-lap run.
The police vehicles
| Vehicle | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | Top speed at | Dynamics | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Blazer EV AWD (electric) | 5.08 | 11.23 | 130 | 0.48 mi | 1:39.95 | 30.21 | 128.2 |
| Ford PI Utility EcoBoost AWD 3.0L | 6.17 | 14.03 | 148 | 1.16 mi | 1:35.97 | 28.27 | 137.0 |
| Ford F-150 Police Responder EcoBoost 3.5L 4WD | 5.95 | 14.81 | 121 | 0.63 mi | 1:40.00 | 25.50 | 151.8 |
| Chevrolet Silverado Z71 4WD | 7.28 | 18.73 | 112 | 0.53 mi | 1:40.92 | 27.62 | 140.2 |
| Dodge Durango 5.7L AWD | 7.30 | 18.89 | 130 | 1.22 mi | 1:39.20 | 27.68 | 139.9 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L RWD | 7.52 | 19.28 | 130 | 1.81 mi | 1:39.02 | 29.83 | 129.8 |
| Chevrolet Silverado Z7X 4WD | 7.52 | 19.36 | 112 | 0.55 mi | 1:42.03 | 26.42 | 146.6 |
| Ford PI Utility Hybrid AWD 3.3L | 7.76 | 17.93 | 136 | 1.25 mi | 1:40.03 | 28.62 | 135.3 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L 4WD | 7.85 | 20.14 | 124 | 1.01 mi | 1:39.77 | 28.94 | 133.8 |
| Ford PI Utility AWD 3.3L | 8.77 | 20.86 | 136 | 1.79 mi | 1:40.25 | 27.98 | 138.4 |
| Dodge Durango 3.6L AWD | 9.03 | 25.14 | 127 | 2.03 mi | 1:41.90 | 27.33 | 141.7 |
Gold row: the electric Blazer is quickest to 60 by 0.87 seconds over the next vehicle, quickest to 100 by 2.80 seconds, and stops shortest. What it does not do is lap: its 1:39.95 is mid-field, four seconds behind the EcoBoost Utility, which took the fastest lap of the year at 1:35.97 and the highest top speed at 148 mph.
The Blazer’s own dynamics sheet explains part of that. Across each eight-lap run its battery fell from 97 percent to between 65 and 67 percent — roughly a third of a 105 kWh pack for eight laps of a two-mile circuit — and its lap times are remarkably consistent, all twenty published laps falling inside a single second. It does not fade; it simply empties.
Two Chevrolet pickups appear for the first time. The Silverado Z7X carries a two-inch lift which the book notes still retains a pursuit capable rating, and 6-piston Brembo front calipers with 16-inch rotors — yet it recorded 146.6 feet, the second-longest stop in the test. The F-150 needed 151.8 feet, the longest of any four-wheeled vehicle here.
And the Tahoes have fixed their brakes. After three consecutive years as the worst-stopping vehicles in the test, the rear-drive car recorded 29.83 ft/s² and 129.8 feet — second only to the Blazer, and thirteen feet better than its own 2020 figure.
The motorcycles
| Machine | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | Top speed at | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW R 1250 RT-P | 4.25 | 9.46 | 137 | 1.85 mi | 26.99 | 143.5 |
| Harley-Davidson Electra Glide FLHTP | 5.26 | 20.30 | 110 | 6.45 mi | 25.92 | 149.4 |
| Harley-Davidson Road Glide FLTRXP | 5.56 | 18.42 | 110 | 0.86 mi | 24.50 | 158.0 |
Only three machines ran, equal to the smallest motorcycle field since they were introduced in 2007, and the Yamaha that held three archive records in 2020 did not return. The Road Glide is new, and it is the odd one of the pair: slower to 60 than the Electra Glide but nearly two seconds quicker to 100, and reaching the same 110 mph limiter in 0.86 of a mile against the Electra Glide’s 6.45.
Fuel economy — and a column that no longer fits
| Vehicle | City | Highway | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Blazer EV AWD | 89 MPGe | 74 MPGe | 81 MPGe — 297-mile range, 40 kWh/100 mi |
| Ford PI Utility Hybrid AWD | 23 | 24 | 24 |
| Ford PI Utility 3.0L EcoBoost / 3.3L AWD | 17 | 22 / 23 | 19 |
| Ford F-150 Police Responder | 16 | 20 | 18 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L (RWD and 4WD) | 15 | 19 | 16 |
| Chevrolet Silverado Z7X / Z71 4WD | 14 | 17 | 15 |
| Dodge Durango 5.7L / 3.6L AWD | not certified at press time | ||
The fuel column has been worth five points out of a hundred since the 1980s, and for most of that time the spread between best and worst was a few miles per gallon. This year it contains an entry measured in kilowatt-hours per hundred miles alongside vehicles returning 14 mpg. The two are not comparable in any arithmetic the programme currently uses.
What 2025 settled
The police sedan is gone. Not diminished, not outnumbered — absent. The Michigan tests began by comparing full-size four-doors against each other, spent thirty years measuring the difference between a Caprice and a Crown Victoria, and in 2025 did not test a single one. What replaced them is eleven trucks and crossovers, and the one that reached 60 mph quickest has no engine at all.
That last point deserves stating plainly, because it is the sort of thing an archive exists to record. A 5,870-pound electric crossover reached 60 mph in 5.08 seconds and 100 in 11.23, and stopped from 60 in 128 feet. In 1980 the fastest thing Michigan tested — a Plymouth Gran Fury with a 360 — needed 11.31 seconds to reach 60 and 172 feet to stop. Forty-five years of these tables, and the vehicle that beats them all is a battery on wheels that has to be plugged in for forty minutes between runs.