Trends in Emergency Vehicle Upfitting: A Conversation with EATI

Emergency Automotive Technologies, Inc. (EATI) is one of the leading emergency vehicle upfitters in the Upper Midwest, offering diverse inventory from top manufacturers, backed by in-house sales, installation,  service, and repair teams. Waytek sat down with three members of EATI’s leadership—Lisa Larson, VP of Business Operations; Adam Wadsten, Special Projects Division Manager; and Nikki Zuniga, Purchasing Manager—to discuss the state of the emergency vehicle upfitting industry, including key challenges and emerging trends.

What types of vehicles does EATI upfit? 

Larson: Law enforcement vehicles make up about three quarters of our volume, followed by fire and emergency vehicles, and rounded out by a variety of other types ranging from construction and road service vehicles to boats, UTVs, and more. We build mostly for agencies and departments in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the surrounding States, but we’ve had customers from all over the country.

What are the critical factors/pain points in your industry right now?

Wadsten: Like many other industries, hiring and staffing is getting tougher. It’s a challenge to find people who are trained and qualified to do the exacting and high-quality work we do here, people with the right skills. When we find them, we do everything we can to hold on to them.

Zuniga: Another pain point is delivery times—delays have become the new normal for many of our suppliers. Five  years ago, there were some vendors you could always count on to deliver in a timely manner. But many of them have added weeks to their lead times—in some cases double-digit weeks. We’re no longer hearing explanations like  “we’re just overloaded now until we get back on track” – it’s more like, this is the way it’s going to be for the foreseeable future.

One exception is electrical wire and components. We get most of those from Waytek, and they keep everything in stock, ready to ship. Once a week we order everything from wire, terminals, and connectors to zip ties, loom, fuses, wire, heat shrink, and circuit breakers. In the rare case that Waytek has an item on back order, you can see on their website exactly when it will arrive.

Wadsten: Stock status on the Waytek website is probably one of the best things out there, because if we’re trying to find something that’s not available, or not in stock, we can find an alternative that is in stock and order that instead. Having that real-time availability has been phenomenal.

What about Tariffs? Are you feeling their impact?

Zuniga: We have a few vendors that are passing along tariff costs, but nothing extreme. And we haven’t noticed any delays tied to tariffs. The impact hasn’t been as much as we anticipated, not yet anyway.

What has changed in the past 10 years when it comes to upfitting? 

Wadsten: There are some things that upfitters don’t need to handle as much, because OEMs are doing it now. Things like factory-installed wire harnesses, integrated headlight and tail light flashers, sometimes even warning lighting and siren systems. But other things have gotten more complex.

Systems integration is becoming a very large part of building a squad car nowadays, particularly signal integration. Instead of positive and negative trigger wires, a lot is running over CAN Bus data. If you aren’t able to read that and de-code that and turn it into a reasonable signal for the functionality you want, you’ll be lost.

Larson: Because it’s such a critical factor in public safety, we take a tested, aftermarket-supported, warranty approach to working with CAN Bus systems. That means that if a customer needs to buy a certain module to get a feature that they want on a vehicle--one that needs to access CAN bus data—they order it and we will connect it properly.

Wadsten: Signal-based systems and features are multiplying because departments want so many things to happen automatically, without driver activation. They want certain things to turn on or off when an officer puts the car in drive or park, when they open or close a door, when they turn on their high beams or turn signals, or when they hit the brakes after ending a pursuit. Sirens blazing, the officer pulls up, puts it in park, throws the door open: They want that siren to shut off automatically so people can hear what the officer’s going to say.  They want the corner light bar to shut off so it’s not blinding the officer. These are just a few of the many situations where one part of the vehicle needs to inform the vehicle control system what’s going on, so that something else happens automatically.

Larson: Many of the features and functions that customers want are integrated by us during the upfit. It starts at the beginning – our sales team finds out what the customer wants, and then we help them choose the right hardware to achieve that. During the upfit, we install that hardware and make sure that it’s configured properly to do what the customer needs it to do. When they leave here with a finished squad car, all they have to do is toss their gear in it and get right to work.

What major trends are you seeing in the industry? 

Larson: One major trend is that Sprinter-type vans are becoming much more popular for use as mobile command centers. Mercedes Benz Sprinters, Ford Transits, Ram Pro Masters. Agencies are moving away from the big bus-sized commercial vehicles. They’re finding that these van-sized solutions fit 90 percent of the uses, but they don’t have nearly the problems and challenges.

Wadsten: Anybody can drive one, they can go down any street. They’re easy to set up, they’re quick, they’re relatively cheap compared to the big buses. We’ve seen the demand for these go through the roof in the past couple of years. Once the departments realize how inexpensively they can have one, outfitted with everything they need, it’s easy for them to justify the purchase.

Shown above: Before and after shots of a Sprinter van that EATI recently upfitted to be used as a mobile command center. Many departments are requesting Sprinter-type vans instead of larger mobile home style vehicles for their command centers. The entire electrical system on this model was upfitted using Waytek products including wire, relays, breakers, loom, and connectors. 

Are you seeing an increase in the use of Electric Vehicles (EVs)?

Larson: It’s a gradual increase, not dramatic. Some customers are wary of EVs based on either misinformation or a lack of information. Other customers—often through experience with their own personal vehicles—have a more open attitude and realize that there are places for EV in public safety. It may not be for a squad car that has to run 24/7 on three shifts a day, but it could be a department chief’s take-home car, or a CSO (Community Service Officer) truck, or any number of other vehicles.

Wadsten: We’ve upfitted a range of EVs—from marked cars to undercovers to special-purpose vehicles. We recently finished an EV fire department K-9 vehicle, one of the first of its kind. Fewer than ten of these have been built in the US. It includes features like secure kennels, a climate control system, and remote door releases to ensure the dogs’ safety and well-being, even when there’s no person in the vehicle.

This model is being tested because of special characteristics that EV brings to the table  – for example, the ability to park the vehicle and keep the air conditioner on without having the engine running in idle. Or the ability to electrically open the window and turn on an auxiliary fan to blow outside air in until someone returns. And all kinds of monitors can be set up to notify someone via text or email if a condition changes. We’re on the forefront of that.

Is upfitting an EV more challenging than a traditional combustion engine vehicle?

Wadsten: Some EV cars are not upfitter-friendly because they haven’t been designed to have a lot of extra power taken from their 12-volt secondary system. Warnings come up or the vehicle shuts off. So in most of our EV builds, we’ve added additional auxiliary batteries to make sure everything stays charged. It adds a little bit of cost to the upfit, but it works great. That’s probably the only challenge of an EV compared to an internal combustion powered vehicle. Everything else is like a regular vehicle; EVs are just as easy to work on from an upfitting perspective.

Larson: We’ll be seeing more EVs for sure. We just can’t predict how many, given the changing economic and regulatory environment.

Thank you for your insights today. We look forward to seeing more innovative builds from EATI. 

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For more information about Emergency Automotive Technologies, visit https://eatimn.com. For electrical wire and DC electrical components in stock and ready to ship, visit www.waytekwire.com.