Michigan test archive
2026 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test
A Mustang comes back to the Michigan tests after thirty-three years — as a battery-electric crossover — and stops shorter than anything the programme has ever measured.
Thirteen vehicles and five motorcycles, tested on 13 September 2025. For the second consecutive year there is no police sedan, and for the first time there are two battery-electric vehicles — the returning Chevrolet Blazer EV and a Ford Mustang Mach-E GT.
The last time a Mustang appeared in a Michigan test was 1993, when the Special Service Package cars ran their farewell beside the first LT1 Camaros and were the only vehicles in the field without anti-lock brakes. The badge returns as an all-wheel-drive electric crossover, and it does two things no police vehicle in this archive has done. It reached 60 mph in 4.03 seconds and 100 mph in 10.63 — quicker than any four-wheeled vehicle in forty-nine model years of these books — and it stopped from 60 mph in 122.45 feet, the shortest distance ever recorded here by a car of any kind.
Two other names are new. Ram brought a 2500 with the 6.4-litre V8, the heaviest-duty pickup the programme has tested, and Honda entered its first police motorcycle, the NT1100P. BMW brought its new R 1300 RT-P in three specifications — including one with automatic shifting, which turned out to be three-quarters of a second quicker to 60 mph than the manual version of the same machine.
The police vehicles
| Vehicle | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | Top speed at | 60–0 (ft) | Dynamics | Comms | Ergo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Mustang Mach-E GT eAWD (electric) | 4.03 | 10.63 | 124 | 0.55 mi | 122.45 | 1:38.84 | 5.33 | 6.30 |
| Chevrolet Blazer EV PPV AWD (electric) | 5.14 | 11.10 | 130 | 0.46 mi | 131.70 | 1:39.50 | 8.71 | 7.40 |
| Ford F-150 Police Responder EcoBoost 3.5L 4WD | 5.68 | 14.14 | 121 | 0.63 mi | 148.31 | 1:39.56 | 8.71 | 7.39 |
| Ford PI Utility EcoBoost AWD 3.0L | 5.95 | 13.87 | 148 | 1.30 mi | 137.24 | 1:35.95 | 9.44 | 8.02 |
| Dodge Durango Pursuit 5.7L AWD | 7.24 | 18.59 | 130 | 1.19 mi | 141.10 | 1:38.30 | 9.78 | 7.95 |
| Chevrolet Silverado PPV Z71 4WD | 7.29 | 18.05 | 114 | 0.53 mi | 141.07 | 1:40.14 | 9.73 | 7.51 |
| Chevrolet Silverado PPV Z7X 4WD | 7.37 | 18.66 | 114 | 0.57 mi | 149.81 | 1:41.18 | 9.73 | 7.51 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV 5.3L RWD | 7.39 | 18.79 | 130 | 2.52 mi | 132.09 | 1:38.09 | 8.84 | 7.93 |
| Ford PI Utility Hybrid AWD 3.3L | 7.52 | 17.52 | 136 | 1.19 mi | 143.82 | 1:39.42 | 9.44 | 8.02 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV 5.3L 4WD | 7.83 | 19.99 | 124 | 0.96 mi | 130.19 | 1:39.19 | 8.84 | 7.93 |
| Ford PI Utility AWD 3.3L | 8.19 | 19.36 | 136 | 1.80 mi | 131.23 | 1:38.95 | 9.44 | 8.02 |
| Dodge Durango Pursuit 3.6L AWD | 8.26 | 22.88 | 128 | 3.14 mi | 135.27 | 1:40.93 | 9.78 | 7.95 |
| Ram 2500 6.4L 4WD | 8.41 | 20.50 | 103 | 0.45 mi | 170.13 | 1:52.17 | 8.77 | 6.78 |
Gold row: 122.45 feet — the shortest 60-to-0 stop ever recorded in this archive by a four-wheeled vehicle, and by a comfortable margin. And 4.03 seconds to 60, which is not merely the quickest car here but the quickest in the programme’s history; only motorcycles have gone faster. What the Mach-E does not have is anywhere to put anything: its communications score of 5.33 is the lowest on the page by more than three points, and its 6.30 ergonomics total is last as well.
The two electric vehicles bracket the field in a way worth noticing. Between them they hold the two quickest 0–60 times, the two quickest 0–100 times and the shortest stopping distance — and they finish eleventh and thirteenth of thirteen on communications. The performance question about electric patrol vehicles appears, on this evidence, to be settled. The installation question is not.
The muted row is the Ram 2500, the first Ram in these tests and the heaviest-duty pickup the programme has ever run. It topped out at 103 mph, needed 170.13 feet to stop — the longest braking distance since the twenty-stop procedure began — and lapped Grattan in 1:52.17, eleven seconds off the next slowest vehicle and the slowest car lap here since the AM General Hummer of 2002.
Among the conventional vehicles the EcoBoost Utility keeps the two headline columns: 148 mph and the fastest lap of the test at 1:35.95, a figure it has held or shared in four of the last five books held here.
The motorcycles
| Machine | 0–60 (s) | 0–80 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | Top speed at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW R 1300 RT-P Dynamic Pkg. with automatic shift | 3.61 | 5.33 | 7.97 | 136 | 0.84 mi |
| BMW R 1300 RT-P Standard Pkg. | 4.35 | 6.00 | 8.57 | 141 | 1.09 mi |
| BMW R 1300 RT-P Dynamic Pkg. | 4.38 | 6.10 | 8.63 | 135 | 0.97 mi |
| Honda NT1100P | 4.16 | 6.60 | 11.06 | 119 | 0.83 mi |
| Harley-Davidson Road Glide | 5.05 | 7.99 | 13.73 | 119 | 1.02 mi |
Gold row, and the reason is a gearbox. The automatic-shift BMW is 0.77 seconds quicker to 60 mph and 0.66 seconds quicker to 100 than the manual Dynamic-package machine it is otherwise identical to — the largest gain from a transmission alone anywhere in this archive, and a direct echo of the 1989 test where a Mustang automatic out-lapped its own five-speed for the first time.
The Honda NT1100P is the first Honda police motorcycle in these books, and it announces itself well: quicker to 60 than two of the three BMWs at 4.16 seconds, from a 1,084 cc twin weighing 566 lb — the lightest machine in the test by more than fifty pounds.
Fuel economy and range
| Vehicle | City | Highway | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Mustang Mach-E GT eAWD | 95 | 85 | 90 MPGe |
| Chevrolet Blazer EV PPV AWD | 286-mile range | ||
| Ford PI Utility Hybrid AWD | 21 | 24 | 23 |
| Dodge Durango Pursuit 3.6L AWD / Ford PI Utility 3.0L EcoBoost | 17 | 24 | 20 |
| Ford PI Utility 3.3L AWD | 17 | 24 | 19 |
| Ford F-150 Police Responder / Dodge Durango Pursuit 5.7L | 16 / 14 | 22 | 18 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV 5.3L (RWD / 4WD) | 14 / 15 | 18 / 19 | 16 |
| Ram 2500 6.4L 4WD | 14 | 18 | 16 |
| Chevrolet Silverado PPV Z7X / Z71 4WD | 14 | 17 | 15 |
The Blazer’s range fell from 297 miles in 2025 to 286 — the first year-on-year change this archive records in a figure that did not exist before 2025. The Mach-E’s 90 MPGe combined is the highest efficiency number the programme has ever published.
What 2026 settled
The Mustang came back, and it came back as an electric crossover. That sentence would have been unintelligible to anyone reading the 1993 book, where two Special Service Package Mustangs ran their last Michigan test as the only cars in the field without anti-lock brakes and were beaten in every column by a new Camaro. Thirty-three model years later the badge returns with no engine, all-wheel drive, a 4.03-second 0–60 and a 122-foot stop — the quickest and the best-braking four-wheeled vehicle this programme has ever measured.
And the pattern the whole archive has been building toward is now plain on a single page. The two fastest and best-stopping vehicles in the test are electric, and they finish eleventh and thirteenth of thirteen on the score that measures whether an officer can actually work in them. Michigan has spent fifty years proving that no vehicle wins every column. It is still true. Only the columns have changed.