A Chevrolet Blazer EV built for police work makes 498 hp and 571 lb-ft of torque, and a handful of them are now turning up on used-car sites for less than the price of a base new Blazer EV. Jalopnik’s Charles Krome reported on Nov. 8 that some examples are listed below $30,000 on CarGurus. The patrol version is a detuned relative of the civilian Blazer SS, which makes 615 hp and 650 lb-ft.
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The price is the draw, since the listings roundup gives no odometer readings. On Carfax only five were available nationwide when the article was written, priced from $29,405 to $35,995. The least expensive new Blazer EV costs $46,795 after destination, and the 2027 Blazer SS EV AWD costs $62,495, so the used patrol cars undercut both by wide margins: the cheapest Carfax example is $17,390 below the least expensive new Blazer EV, and the priciest is $26,500 below a new Blazer SS EV AWD. Nothing in the roundup says how hard any individual car was driven.
Michigan State Police numbers for the Blazer EV PPV
The performance claim rests on the Michigan State Police evaluation, a program the agency describes on its police vehicle test results page as extensive testing of the latest model-year vehicles available for purchase. In the MY2026 test book, the Blazer EV PPV AWD is rated at 498 combined hp and 571 lb-ft. It reached 60 mph in 5.14 seconds on the average of four runs, second only to the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT eAWD at 4.03 seconds among the 13 vehicles. Its 130 mph top speed, reached in 19.57 seconds over 0.46 mile, tied the Tahoe 5.3L RWD and Durango 5.7L AWD, while the Mach-E managed 124 mph.
Braking was solid rather than class-leading. Average deceleration was 29.40 ft/s2, giving a projected 131.70 ft stop from 60 mph, fourth of 13 by deceleration, and the car stayed straight and in its lane with no severe fade. The acceleration, top speed and braking runs took place on Sept. 13, 2025. Officer.com notes that the Blazer EV PPV was the only electric vehicle in the previous year’s evaluation, so this year’s field of 13 included a second EV rival for it.
Government Fleet’s write-up of the testing adds a dynamics result: an average lap of 1:39:50 with 69.5% of the battery left at the end, against 1:38:04 and 61.6% for the Mach-E, the fastest electric vehicle on the course. Officer.com’s account by Paul Peluso credits Lt. Nicholas Darlington, who heads the Michigan State Police Precision Driving Unit, with overseeing the evaluations.
Brembo brakes and purpose-built wiring on the police Blazer EV
Krome’s article lists what separates the patrol car from the civilian one. The police version has a purpose-built electrical architecture, including a power module reducer and a universal vehicle module, that supports upfitter equipment and modes such as Shutdown Inhibit and Fast Idle. It also gets front Brembo brakes, a heavy-duty suspension and steel skid plates. Some used examples still wear bull bars, but the red and blue lights are gone.
Jalopnik’s yardstick is the new-car market. A Dodge Charger Scat Pack makes 550 hp and costs $56,990 with destination, and a Tesla Model 3 Performance makes 528 hp for $56,630. A base Honda Accord and a Nissan Leaf make 192 hp and 214 hp respectively and both cost under $30,000, so a used Blazer EV PPV offers more than double that power for similar money.
Sterling Heights and the departments that put the Blazer EV on patrol
Police departments bought these cars for a few years, and the clearest public record of one in service comes from Michigan. Government Fleet reported that the Sterling Heights Police Department put a Blazer EV PPV, which the city called one of the first purpose-built pursuit-rated EVs in Michigan, on daily patrol and traffic enforcement duty after a Jan. 22 ribbon-cutting attended by GM Envolve representatives. Mayor Michael Taylor and Interim Police Chief Kenneth Pappas helped introduce it.
The city’s 2022 data compared the Blazer EV with its Ford Police Interceptor Utility and found 3.7865 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year against 13.688, a 72% reduction. The department installed a dedicated charging station, though it has a limited number of docks, and wider use depends on more charging infrastructure. Officers drove the car during Emergency Vehicle Operations training and received a tutorial on how an EV differs from a combustion patrol car, including acceleration and regenerative braking. Maintenance has been minimal, with only a few minor fixes since it entered service, though the city says its data on cost and performance is still being collected. Sterling Heights has ordered a second Blazer EV and planned to review the pilot after one year before deciding whether to expand electric vehicles across the fleet.
The unanswered questions for a used buyer are the ones the listings leave out. Jalopnik gives no mileage, nothing on battery health after hard patrol use, and just five Carfax entries to choose from.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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