Today we will talk about the new car of our police - Toyota Prius. And find out if the game is worth the candle?
Not only are the old police thrown out into the “frost”, but they also give completely new cars to patrols! We haven't seen this in a long time! And while passions are running high in all social networks about how the new police are dragging stalled cars, how they cannot detain a homeless person with a spoon, and how an injured motorcyclist is smeared with brilliant green on his torn knee and hooked on wawa, we will talk about what we like best - about cars.
How did we get such machines?
Many have heard the answer to this question, which consisted in a single phrase - the Kyoto Protocol. But as a rule, it is not very clear what exactly lies behind this phrase. The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement between countries to reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere, which was adopted in 1997. This agreement was the first document in the world that obligated countries to protect the environment and, in order for the states to participate in it, it introduced the principles of free market trade (the so-called trading in quotas). There are also joint implementation projects and clean development mechanisms. In other words, if your country has a production facility that emits a lot of harmful substances and it is very expensive for you to change something technologically, then you can buy an emission quota from a country that pollutes the atmosphere slightly. It would be possible to buy a lot of quotas from us, since there are many enterprises, but in fact nothing works and is not “thrown away”, but, as always, our state intervened and put spokes in the wheels ... And there is still no clear understanding of how we can sell the quota and where we will put the money received. It is no wonder that no one wants to mess with us with such an approach.
Things are a little better with joint implementation projects. It is thanks to this mechanism that we received new cars from the Japanese government. Although it is necessary to say "glory" to our officials, who constantly changed the conditions and rules for the implementation of such a procedure, and glory to their Japanese colleagues, who were able to implement this project.
Why Prius?
Indeed, why not give our servants of the law a simple Corolla? After all, they are simpler and cheaper ... The whole problem is that this is not just a gift, but some kind of exchange, as described above. Therefore, a machine was needed that pollutes the environment very little. And this role is best suited Prius - as the leader of hybrids.
Among motorists, the erroneous opinion very often wanders that hybrids are created for economical driving, but this is not at all the case. More precisely, reducing consumption is not the highest priority. The main thing is to reduce emissions into the atmosphere. And this can be achieved only with the help of major changes in the heart of the machine - in the internal combustion engine.
How can this be done? There are several ways, but the main one today is the transition of engines to the Atkinson cycle. The latter, unlike the traditional Otto cycle, which is now used in all machines, allows you to increase the efficiency of the motor. Higher efficiency - less losses, and therefore less emissions.
Since this cycle has such an advantage, why not do it on all engines? A reasonable question, the answer to which are the two main drawbacks of the Atkinson cycle - loss of power and very little torque at low revs. Both of these shortcomings are more than compensated for by the electric motor, which is why the Atkinson cycle has become the de facto main if you are building a hybrid. Although, to be precise, modern ICE hybrids operate on the Miller cycle, which is a combination of two cycles - the traditional Otto and the more interesting Atkinson. About the fundamental differences between them and how to implement them, we, I think, will make a separate article so as not to overload this material.
So, the answer to the above question (why did we get the Prius?) will be: "because they are much more environmentally friendly than the rest." Of course, we do not touch on the question of how environmentally friendly it is to produce hybrids ... after all, this is also a separate topic for conversation.
How much does it all cost?
Our peace officers got the latest version of this machine. It is difficult to say about the final cost, but the base car costs 37 thousand dollars. This is the price in our market. In the US or Europe, the price tag for a base car starts at $24,000, and most likely that's how much they cost the Japanese. Plus, the cars were additionally equipped with service vehicles, but no one discloses their cost. In 2012, the Interior Ministry spent $34 million on 1,200 of these machines, at a cost of $28,333 per vehicle (i.e., the conversion cost about $4,000). A lot has changed since then, but there are very big doubts that equipping with additional cameras, flashing lights and other things costs a lot. Based on these approximate calculations, new patrol cars (of which 348 were bought this year) cost our state about $10 million.
Is the Prius better than the Sens?
No seriously. Let Lanos and Sens barely reach the title of "car" by modern standards, but at the same time, these devices are unpretentious and cheap to maintain. The Prius is, of course, more expensive (you can find the maintenance prices at the link). In addition, it has a hybrid installation, and these words still scare our people ... But the manufacturer assures that there is really nothing to be afraid of. The "hybrid" component has a minimum of mechanical parts, so it has much less chances to fail than a gasoline one. Then the question is brewing: “How long will the battery last in such a car?”. Let's start with the fact that the battery is located in the cabin, so that the maximum amount of time is at room temperature that is "comfortable" for the electronics.
Also, the company's engineers note that during operation, the battery can be charged up to about 80% of its capacity, and discharged up to 40%, respectively. This mode is the most gentle and prolongs its service life. Therefore, according to the manufacturer's calculations, the battery will last as long as the machine itself. At the same time, users of hybrids should remember the rules of operation, and, for example, do not block the ventilation grills of the battery cooling system. The fact is that during active discharge and charge, the battery starts to heat up, and if the air supply to the battery cooling system is cut off, this can lead to overheating and, as a result, can cause a decrease in its resource. In other words, if you even casually scroll through the instructions, everything will work like clockwork.
In summary, we can say the following: yes, the Prius at first glance is not an ideal candidate for a patrol car. Expensive, not the easiest to maintain, weak, and therefore not fast. But on the other hand, these machines are a kind of investment in the future. To a good future.
- , 16 Jul 2015
Patrol police have wrecked more than a thousand vehicles since the Japanese handed over brand new Toyota Prius in 2015.
About this journalists Informant.
As you know, Japan in 2015 handed over to Ukraine 1,5 thousands of Toyota Prius for patrol officers.
“The cars that are transferred by the Japanese side to the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be transferred to the new units of the reformed national police, units of the patrol service, which should become a symbol of zero tolerance for corruption and will be used throughout our state,” Poroshenko said at the time.
The President said that the cars will be equipped with modern means of fixation and will be used by employees of the new patrol service, which appeared in late June and early July.
Poroshenko believed that these cars could become a symbol of the new honest police.
In turn, the Prime Minister of Japan expressed the opinion that these cars will be a serious contribution to the reform of the Ukrainian police.
“I hope that these highly environmentally friendly Priuses (Toyota Prius) will become a symbol of the Ukrainian traffic police and will help improve the image of this service,” he said.
We managed to find out that in less than 6 months of 2015, the police managed to smash more than 200 cars. This is about 33 cars per month, that is, 1 per day.
“In 2015 in Ukraine, as a result of an accident, 201 Toyota Prius car, of which 157 cars are in Kyiv, half of them are due to the fault of patrolmen. Now 84 patrol cars have been repaired,” law enforcement officers said.
As of December 2016, it was broken 439 official vehicles. This means that in 2016 another approx. 250 cars.
In 2017, the police managed to break all records and break 461 automobile.
“It became known how many patrol police vehicles were out of service due to an accident for 7 months in 2017. In response to an official request from the Commander-in-Chief, the press service of the National Police of Ukraine reported that in 2017, 461 cars got into an accident,” the website says.
Data for 2018 is not yet available, but a law enforcement source said the figure would be no less impressive than in 2017. The source adds that there are only a few whole Toyota Prius cars that the Japanese supplied.
“If the trend continues, then by the end of 2019, the police will lose their vehicles for service. Everything goes to this. As for Japan, nothing is known yet, but the next batch is not yet expected,” the source concluded.
In an interview with 2 + 2, Andriy Kobylinskiy, who worked as a patrolman in Kiev for two years, said that he remembered cases when part of the salary was withdrawn for an accident due to the fault of a patrolman. Here, says Andrei, a stick with two ends. Sometimes an accident is on the conscience of the cops themselves, but it happens that the car suffers through no fault of theirs.
“When a car breaks down, they put it on the site, and it no longer drives. When she was beaten in an accident - the same situation, she no longer drives, ”he adds.
Summing up the numbers, it becomes clear that about 1300 patrol cars are already out of service. Repair of this amount can start from 10 million hryvnia. Many of them are no longer subject to it at all.
Old UAZs and VAZs, which are currently used by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, are gradually being replaced by new cars. They also get new equipment.
Today, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine received 348 Toyota Prius from the Japanese government under the Green Program. And one can only rejoice at this event, because it involves double savings and bonuses. First, the police received the cars free of charge. Secondly, - Toyota Prius - a hybrid car, with an average gasoline consumption of 3.9 l / 100 km. And this, at current fuel prices, is a significant savings. As for the bonus, Toyota Ukraine received it. According to AUTO-Consulting, Toyota Ukraine service centers immediately had almost three and a half hundred potential customers for service. After all, it will no longer be possible to serve a hybrid car anywhere.
In addition, the company expects that the operation of the Toyota Prius in the Ministry of Internal Affairs will become a catalyst for interest in this model and ordinary citizens. After all, cars that you often see on the street, and even in the police, inspire confidence in terms of reliability and the absence of difficulties in operation in our conditions. Moreover, this is already the second batch of hybrid Toyota Prius from the Japanese government under the Kyoto Protocol. The first consisted of 1220 pieces. They dispersed throughout Ukraine, some even ended up in the occupied Crimea and the DPR
The handover ceremony of the brand new Toyota Prius took place at the National Academy of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The event was attended by the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov from the Ukrainian side and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine Shigeki Summe, representatives of Sumitomo and Toyota Ukraine corporations from the Japanese side.
The current batch of Prius is intended for the Kyiv police, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told an AUTO-Consulting correspondent. And this is not the last joint project with the Japanese government. Next in line are cars for the patrol service of Lviv and Kharkov. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also noted that all cars will be equipped with new special means for the full-fledged functioning of patrol policemen.
Police Toyota Prius has a length of 4480 mm, width - 1745 mm, height - 1510 mm. Wheelbase - 2700 mm. Trunk volume - 445 liters. Ground clearance especially for fans of crossovers - 140 mm. The car is equipped with a 1.8-liter gasoline engine with 99 hp. and an E-CVT variator. Runs on 95 petrol. The hybrid installation also includes 2 electric motors, the need for which the electronic system determines independently. With them, the total power of the Prius increases to 136 hp. Maximum speed - 180 km / h, acceleration to hundreds - 10.4 s. Fuel consumption is best in class. In the combined cycle - 3.9 l / 100 km.
As Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine Shigeki Summe told an AUTO-Consulting correspondent, he is very pleased that Toyota Prius will become a symbol of the new Ukrainian patrol service.
On the Toyota Prius, which arrived from Japan, there is no special equipment, except for the Indonesian-made flashing lights, sirens and antennas in the trunk. They even have the old inscription “Militsia” on them, although they will already ride under the brand of the police. And these are actually basic cars, with caps on ordinary metal disks.
According to Arsen Avakov, it will take 2-3 weeks to equip them with special equipment for patrol service. The AUTO-Consulting correspondent found out which one.
Patrol Toyota Prius will be equipped with at least two walkie-talkies - stationary and remote. In addition, a terminal for paying fines with a card right on the spot, without leaving the patrol car, will become an obligatory interior accessory.
A Typhoon video surveillance and digital video recording system will also be installed on the patrol car. A communication system with a central database will be obligatory in order to be able to check the details of the car or its driver online. To do this, a tablet will be installed in the patrol car. A special small camera is the Rubezh video recording system. She, in particular, identifies violators by license plates. Moreover, it is not necessarily violators of traffic rules. Defaulters for an apartment, alimony or debtors on loans can also be identified by a car if the police received information from the executive service about them.
To counter dangerous criminals, patrol cars will be armed. No, not with machine guns, Arsen Avakov told an AUTO-Consulting correspondent. But there will definitely be weapons.
We will see all this already in June - early June. By this time, according to Arsen Avakov, the Verkhovna Rada will approve all the necessary legislative base and the new patrol service will be able to work in full force.
With the replacement of traffic police officers and patrol officers with patrol police officers, new law enforcement officers received new cars for work.
As part of the cooperation under the Kyoto Protocol with Japan, patrol officers received more than 300 Toyota Prius cars.
Stories about how Ukrainians are actively discussing in social networks.
Correspondent.net collected information about how the police beat the cars.
Disappointing statistics
For eight months of work of the patrol police of Kyiv, 78 Toyota Prius cars were damaged as a result of an accident.
The department reported that the cars of the patrol police of Kyiv are insured in the insurance companies "Ukraine" and "Arsenal".
"Patrol police cars have civil liability insurance," the National Police said.
Over the next seven months, patrolmen damaged 60 service vehicles in Kyiv.
In Transcarpathia, patrol officers smashed 20 service cars, for the entire time the patrol service has been working since 2015, the cops have been in 13 accidents.
The most resonant incidents
In Kharkov, on the night of July 24, three cops in a state of intoxication tried to escape from the chase, which was staged by their colleagues in order to stop the violators.
They stopped at the intersection of Belgorod highway and Kurchatov Avenue only after they got into an accident, Mitsubishi Lancer crashed into an electrical pole and a tree. From the place they were taken to the hospital by the doctors of the ambulance brigade. During the accident, the police received injuries of varying severity.
The car was driven by an employee of the district police department, two passengers were members of the patrol police. The police are conducting an investigation into the incident.
In Kyiv, not far from the Dorohozhychi metro station, a patrol police car ran into a woman who was crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing.
Although initially the patrol police reported that the woman was crossing the road in the wrong place, and only after the video was made public, did she admit that the police car hit the woman at the pedestrian crossing.
Patrolmen participating in the event were suspended from duty.
What is the problem
After completing a three-month course, the trainers of the new police officers did not pay any attention to the study of traffic rules and did not test the new cops for driving skills.
The police smashed the first car on the very first working day of service.
The National Police of Ukraine says that, according to the data at the end of 2015, out of all patrol Prius cars, more than a hundred cars underwent repairs of varying complexity after an accident, about five are not subject to repair.
“But here you need to take into account that they work at night, participate in chases. More than 60% of accidents are caused by the fault of others. Police officers are gaining experience every day, and the rate of accidents due to their fault is decreasing. People with rights are already joining the patrol police, and in the process of training they are gaining extreme driving skills,” said Ivan Varchenko, adviser to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
New cars
Despite all the problems with the cars, the police will get new cars.
Soon they will switch to new Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric) cars with a hybrid engine.
The National Police will receive, according to the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers, 651 hybrid vehicles with a consumption of 2 liters of gasoline per 100 km.
"The use of these magnificent modern cars in operation will save UAH 330 million on fuel. The cars will be distributed by the National Police to units throughout Ukraine," Avakov said.
What else do they ride
In addition to the Japanese Toyota Prius, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also massively purchased French cars. In total, in 2015, the Ministry of the Interior bought about 300 Renault cars for the new police. And another 651 cars are planned.
Helped Ukraine and the European Union. As part of the border control program between Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, the Volyn police received 38 Isuzu pickups.
Also, Hyundai was given to the police, which they bought under Euro 2012 to work at the Boryspil airport.
Ukrainian police cars
To begin with, it is worth telling why the choice fell on the Toyota Prius. It's all about the Kyoto Protocol, which is a global agreement to regulate the amount of emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. Within its framework, each member state receives an annual emission quota and cannot exceed it. If a country has not used its quota in full, then it can sell it on the international market to any other, and spend the money on the environment. Ukraine exchanged part of its remaining quota for 2014 and 2015 for Japanese Toyota Prius cars, which became the equipment of the new patrol police.
In fact, for our country, obtaining these machines did not cost anything. In Japan, a Prius costs 24,000 dollars, more than 1,500 cars were delivered to Ukraine, which means that Japan bought our quotas under the Kyoto Protocol for 36 million dollars. Police cars of Ukraine differed from the standard Prius only in the installed Indonesian-made flasher and siren. And then, some of the cars came with blue flashing lights, while by law a patrol car must be equipped with red and blue flashing lights.
these are the cars of the new police
All other equipment that is necessary for a patrol car was installed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on its own and the cost per car was about 4 thousand dollars. But before we talk about what exactly is on patrol cars, let's talk about the Toyota Prius themselves.
Toyota Prius III - police cars
What kind of cars does the new police of Ukraine have, what are they equipped with? The heart of the car is the Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) - a power plant that consists of an internal combustion engine, an electric motor, a generator, a variator and a computer that ensures the interaction of all elements. The power of the electric motor is 99 hp, but during acceleration, the maximum power is increased by the gasoline engine to 136 hp.
In normal driving mode at speeds up to 70 km / h, the car is completely powered by an electric motor. Therefore, in the normal patrol mode, it does not harm the environment at all and does not make noise. But the power plant also has a weak point - its battery.
According to Japanese engineers, the Prius battery can last as long as the car itself. But this is under ideal operating conditions. After all, it should work at room temperature (which is why it was brought into the cabin) and only charge up to 80% and discharge at least 40% of its power. But how the young policemen will exploit it is unknown. That is why, according to optimistic forecasts, the battery will last for 160 thousand kilometers. And under conditions of constant operation, this is a maximum of 3 years. After the battery will need to be changed, and it costs 4 thousand dollars.
The police car of Ukraine does not differ in its speed characteristics. Acceleration from 0 to 100 km / h they have a little more than 10 seconds, which is on a par with our popular Korean middle-class cars. This is clearly not enough to prosecute violators in expensive foreign cars, which are more than enough on our roads.
police cars in Ukraine
But in general, the car is quite good and, like everything Japanese, reliable. With proper care and proper operation, it runs along our roads for a long time.
Police vehicle equipment
They talk about what kind of cars the police in Kyiv and other cities have, one cannot fail to mention the special equipment that is necessary for the quality performance of their duties by police officers.
The machine is equipped with two walkie-talkies. One is in the cabin, the second is remote and fixed on the patrolman's chest. Also, the machine is integrated into a common database through a tablet computer, which can be used both in the cabin and outside. Registration is provided by the Typhoon digital video surveillance system. A camera is also installed along with the Rubezh complex, which can automatically identify license plates of cars and compare them with a database to search for violators. Moreover, the database includes not only violators of traffic rules, but also defaulters on loans, alimony, utilities, if a request for their search came to the police from the executive service.
Also in each car there is a terminal for paying fines on the spot. This is a very important innovation that will allow drivers to save their time. Acquiring terminals were installed by Oschadbank. They are already in police patrol cars in big cities and in the near future such terminals will be in all cars across the country.
Also in the police Toyota Prius there are other means for doing the work of the police: restrictive cones, first aid packages, road signs and more.
