The police chief wants to purchase a seven-car test fleet of hybrids, including six sedans and one sport utility vehicle like a Ford Escape Hybrid. It has two power plants, a 4-cylinder gas engine for high-speed driving, which recharges batteries for an electric motor for stop-and-go traffic. To make the purchase the department will turn seized gold, property and jewelery into green.

New York tested an Escape under police conditions and it got 38 miles to the gallon. With mileage like this the department could save taxpayers $2 million a year.

“Conceptually it’s going to be a vast improvement, but we want to see what the real world results are,” said Bill Wiltshire of Honolulu Ford.

“In a lot of ways a hybrid is an ideal police vehicle because police officers spend a lot of time stopped, and in this vehicle when you stop, you stop using gas,” HPD’s finance chief Maj. Mark Nakagawa said.

Police also want to know if it can accommodate the extra electrical needs like running laptop computers and sitting for long periods of time with the lights flashing.

The chief said he is not too worried about the hybrids speed because the department thinks high-speed chases are too dangerous, anyway.

Where are they going to go anyway… hey, it’s an island! We go ’round in circles lala lala….

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