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.”
Ford replaced the Crown Victoria-based vehicles with Taurus and Explorer based vehicles for model year 2013. The Taurus and its police version were both discontinued in 2019. The Explorer is now Ford’s only offering as a primary police vehicle, but other Ford vehicles are offered as secondary police vehicles including the F-150 Lightning.