California is all in on an electric future, planning to ban the sale of gas and diesel powered cars starting in 2035. To get ready for this brave new world some police departments started with buying a few Teslas. These departments immediately ran into serious problems using the vehicles as cruisers, such as a lack of charging infrastructure, inadequate interior space, expensive and lengthy retrofitting processes, interference from advanced driver safety assistance systems and more.
But there is an obvious option here: Don’t use a Tesla. The Fort Bragg Police Department told SFGate using a F-150 Lightning as a patrol vehicle makes a lot more sense.
“Tesla isn’t the right answer in the law enforcement market currently for electric adoption,” Police Department Chief Neil Cervenka told SFGate. “But there might be better options.”
These sound like trumped up justifications from people who don’t want the cars for other reasons.
I’ve ridden in the back seats of Teslas in Lyfts with my girlfriend. I feel like more than one person can fit in the back seat, since we were able to do so very comfortably. We are both short, so maybe the kind police are concerned about leg room for prisoners?
How often are these police being shot at?
Too bad? Don’t get arrested if you don’t want to sit around being bored for 30 minutes while they top up at a fast charger?
Best counters I can figure:
More an issue of putting a resisting arrestee back there without breaking either them or the car.
Probably not often, but it is in their job description to respond to active shooters. And the usual bit about them being so bad at deescalatuon that they make things worse.
I think the concern is less for the detained and more for the patrolling man-hours of the cops themselves. Every minute spent charging is a minute they aren’t reminding the public that there are consequences for standing out.