Most Police Cars Don't Come With V8 Engines Anymore

The V8 cruiser in your rearview mirror is becoming quite a rare sight these days. Police departments across America have largely moved on from big, thirsty eight-cylinders, and the reasons come down to three things: the cars are gone, the fuel bills make little sense, and the smaller engines that replaced them are actually really good.

Start with the cars. The Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, the 4.6-liter V8 sedan that defined American policing for decades, went out of production after 2011. Production of its Taurus-based successor, the Police Interceptor Sedan, ended in 2019. Dodge's Charger Pursuit, the last big rear-drive V8 sedan in patrol work, went away along with the gas-powered Charger in 2023.

In short, departments that wanted a V8 sedan simply ran out of things to buy. Then there's the money. Patrol cars spend a huge chunk of their working lives parked idling, powering lights, radios, laptops, and cameras. Burning gas at a standstill in a V8 is a tough expense to defend when fuel prices are up. A hybrid that can idle on battery looks a lot smarter since it can save fuel in many of those situations.

That's why U.S. police car fleets are mostly Fords these days, and not just any Fords. The Police Interceptor Utility, the Explorer-based pursuit SUV, comes standard with a 318 hp 3.3-liter hybrid V6. For departments that still want speed, there's the 3.0-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V6, good for roughly 400 hp. Chevy's Tahoe PPV still offers a 5.3-liter V8, so the V8 isn't extinct, but it's no longer the default, and the days of the V8 Hemi and Crown Vic being the obvious cop choice are long gone.

In 2015 L.A. Sheriff's Department testing, Ford's EcoBoost V6 sedan hit 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. The V8 Charger needed 6.6, and the V8 Caprice PPV needed 6.7. Fall 2018 Michigan State Police tests of the 2020 Interceptor Utility repeated the result. The EcoBoost version reached 100 mph in 13.6 seconds, with the 5.7-liter V8 Charger at 14.7. Even the hybrid V6 got there in 17.7, ahead of the 5.7-liter Durango Pursuit at 18.3 and the 5.3-liter Tahoe at 20.2.

Michigan's 2024 tests of 2025 models kept the pattern: the EcoBoost topped out at 148 mph and lapped Grattan Raceway in 96 seconds. The rear-drive 5.3-liter Tahoe managed 130 mph and a 99-second lap, and the 5.7-liter Durango matched its top speed. The hybrid isn't the quickest off the line, though. It needed 7.76 seconds to reach 60 mph that year, versus 7.30 for the 5.7-liter Durango.

Fuel economy is where the V8 falls furthest behind. The Crown Victoria Police Interceptor's 4.6-liter V8 — the forever cop car — was rated at 14 mpg city and 21 mpg highway. In 2011, Ford projected that its new V6-powered Police Interceptors would deliver 20 to 25 percent better fuel economy. When Eugene Police Department planned to replace its Crown Victorias with Police Interceptor Utilities, it estimated annual fuel savings of $150,000.

Idling matters too. A 2013 Argonne National Laboratory study followed one patrol car and logged 60 percent idle time, with 21 percent of its fuel burned at a standstill. In the real world, Ann Arbor's police hybrids from Michigan averaged 15.6 mpg at the end of 2020, against 8.7 for its non-hybrid Interceptors and Tahoes. No matter how you cut it, the V6 takes it.

The fact that the most commonly known police V8s were bolted onto cars that stopped being produced is not always enough for them to stop being used as police cars. Take the last generation of the Camaro, which ceased production in 2023, yet a Chevy Camaro SS 1LE is now being introduced into the California Highway Patrol (CHP) fleet as its final Camaro cruiser.

The CHP Camaro is truly an old-school cruiser. The SS 1LE makes 455 horsepower and 455 pound-feet of torque from a 6.2-liter V8 with no turbos or supercharger. CHP Fleet Operations even called it the "final CHP Camaro" in a rather sentimental Instagram post.

Ford does not offer a factory-built police Mustang, but that has not stopped the New York State Police, which added 19 Mustang GTs to its fleet in 2026, or North Carolina and Virginia, which decided to run them too. Of course, the 5.3-liter Tahoe is still around, Dodge still offers the 2026 Durango Pursuit with its optional 360-hp 5.7-liter HEMI V8, and you can get a 6.4-liter HEMI V8 with the Ram 2500 Emergency Response Vehicle.

Although this may sound like the V8 is still very relevant, in reality, that is not the case. Most police cars these days truly don't come with V8s anymore, since they are becoming more specialized and more rare. Back in Q3 of 2025, Ford police vehicles accounted for 60.6% of the police vehicle segment, and the main reason for that was the Police Interceptor Utility, which has no V8 option.