Emergency service giant Falck decided to turn a Tesla Model X into an ambulance in order to see if they could make a zero-emission emergency service vehicle.

Jakob Riis, CEO of Falck, commented on the unveiling of the vehicle today:

“At Falck, we are concerned with using less fuel. It is beneficial both for the environment and the economy, and since no one else in the world has made an old-fashioned ambulance, we ourselves have thrown ourselves into developing one.”

To be fair, another ambulance service in the Netherlands has unveiled a Tesla Model X used as an all-electric ‘rapid responder’, but Falck seems to claim that their Model X is an actual “ambulance” that can carry patients.

They claim to have designed a separate electric system in order to power all new equipment in the car without having to use the powertrain’s battery pack.

Riis explained:

“We drive with a separate electric system in the car, which means that all equipment is powerted outside from the car’s battery so that eg emergency lights and sound, radio, medical equipment and cooling / heating equipment run in a closed system which is charged at departure, while one electric system constantly lets you drive and stay outside the garage.”

Unfortunately, the company only released two pictures of the vehicle without showing the entire ambulance and this second electric system:

Falck also says that it installed a methanol heating system inside the vehicle so that the Model X doesn’t use battery power for the climate system in the winter.

The CEO explained:

“So even on a frozen winter day on the highway, where the rescuer must wait for the rescue mission to be solved and the patient is released and can be loaded into the ambulance, we can guarantee that a warm car is ready for the patient. This is a very important element in the future electric powered ambulance,”

The company says that the vehicle is going to be tested as part of their ambulance service in the Syddanmark region.

Riis said:

“It is being tested under real-life response with rapid acceleration and hard braking, and it has never been done before. We test it and begin the development of an ambulance for lying patient transport in parallel.”

Furthermore, Falck said that “the first electric cars for patient transport” will roll out around Copenhagen as a result of an agreement with the region.

We have seen an increased number of electric, and especially Tesla vehicles, being used by emergency services lately. Several police departments are now using Model S and Model X.

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