WASHINGTON — Polaris’ newest all-electric offroad vehicle is on the production line, ahead of a mandate for the federal government to move to zero-emission vehicles in the coming years.

The Ranger XP Kinetic utility vehicle began production earlier this year and is being pitched as a replacement for pickup trucks and other offroad work vehicles on large military bases, in park services departments and in other state and federal government organizations.

Nick Francis, Polaris’ vice president of government and defense, told Defense News many of these organizations are already replacing their on-road vehicle fleets with all-electric vehicles and that Ranger XP Kinetic would complement that ongoing work for the offroad fleets.

“When you look at greening the government, when you look at the need for state and federal organizations to meet their economic and civil goals around electrification, this is the perfect platform for that,” he said.

According to Francis, all-electric vehicles are estimated to require 70% less maintenance than their gas-powered equivalents, thereby reducing their total ownership cost even as they reduce carbon emissions.

But more importantly, they’re being mandated by the government.

President Joe Biden in December 2021 signed an executive order aimed at spurring private investments in zero-emissions energy by requiring the federal government to go green. Included in the order is a requirement for “100 percent zero-emission vehicle acquisitions by 2035, including 100 percent zero-emission light-duty vehicle acquisitions by 2027.”

The U.S. Army two months later released a climate strategy that calls for fielding an all-electric, light-duty, non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2027 — which would include the Ranger XP Kinetic — and an all-electric non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2035.

Army officials acknowledge they’re making good progress on some of the plan’s initiatives but that the electric vehicles effort has been tougher.

Rachel Jacobson, the assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and the environment, previously told Defense News that “the auto manufacturers aren’t keeping up because they’ve got such demand for these cars. For our purposes, they haven’t been able to keep up with the amounts that we’ve wished to procure.”

She also noted the Army is struggling to build the charging infrastructure needed for the cars; without the charging stations, the service would have “a parking lot full of [electric vehicles] without charging capacity.”

Polaris’ all-electric utility vehicle may get around these challenges.

A Polaris Ranger purchased by the Fort McCoy Police Department in Wisconsin. (U.S. Army photo courtesy Polaris Government and Defense Twitter page)

Francis said the new 2023 offering is built at the company’s Huntsville, Alabama, production line, which could build thousands of vehicles a year as sales are expected to pick up ahead of the upcoming deadlines.

And he noted the vehicles rely on the same charging infrastructure that installations are beginning to invest in for their on-road fleets, or they can plug into a regular 120-volt or 240-volt outlet. Particularly for the bases that have built out a network of charging stations, he said there were no additional barriers to bringing the electric Ranger into their fleets.

Francis said many would-be customers have “range anxiety” about battery-powered vehicles, worrying the battery will run out before the vehicle can get back to a charging station. He noted the Ranger XP Kinetic has a range of about 80 miles before it needs to recharge, which covers a full day’s work for most of the envisioned applications.

Those could include base security and emergency services, park maintenance or training range management.

Francis said the electric utility vehicle had already been delivered to military customers on the East and West coasts but that he could not disclose which customers had already purchased the vehicle this year.

Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.

Share:
More In Land