Tweet Me: - One charge will last up to 125 miles for Clovis PD's 5 new electric motorcycles. Oh & they go up to 95 mph. - Clovis has 5 electric motorcycles & they have the most of any PD in the nation.
It’s the dead of summer and the air quality in the San Joaquin Valley is red or unhealthy for sensitive groups. But one Valley police department is doing their part to change that. FM89’s Ezra David Romero reports.
John Weaver is in charge of the Clovis Police Department’s motorcycle traffic fleet. Until today he drove a chic black and white police grade BMW R1200 motorcycle.
But that’s all changed for him. Today Clovis PD received five electric motorcycles making them the largest fleet of environmentally friendly motorcycle cops in the nation.
The Zero Electric Police motorcycles were purchased from Clovis based EkhausFleet for just under $95,000 through a Public Benefit Grant from the San Joaquin Valley Air District. Thirty plus bikes are waiting in the grant process for other Valley locales.
The California made bikes look like beefed up dualsport bikes, but unlike their loud cousins the electric version produces practically no noise and zero exhaust.
“The Zero Motorcycles weigh just slightly over 400 pounds you can go all day riding it and you can go home plug it into socket and it takes about eight hours and it recharges,” says Weaver.
"They're going to be used in areas where there's a lot of traffic, areas where there's maybe a lot of pedestrians and that's a great area for a vehicle that's not kicking nitrogen oxides out of the tailpipe." - Jamie Holt.
Weaver and air district spokeswoman Jamie Holt agree that the battery powered motorcycles are a step in the right direction for a region plagued with bad air days. Dinuba, Parlier, Visalia and other cities across the Valley already have a few bikes.
“They’re going to be used in areas where there’s a lot of traffic, areas where there’s maybe a lot of pedestrians and that’s a great area for a vehicle that’s not kicking nitrogen oxides out of the tailpipe,” says Holt.
Starting Friday the Zeros, as Weaver calls them, will be out in full force with motorcycle cops ready to site traffic violations, monitor trails and patrol rodeo grounds.
