‘Nearly unusable’: Calif. police majorly push back on Tesla cop cars

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-switch-electric-cars-cops-19816671.php

12 Comments

  1. SomeDudeNamedMark on

    I’m a Tesla owner, but not currently a Tesla fanboy (guess why).

    But these complaints are mostly nitpicky BS. Laughable to call them “nearly unusable”.

  2. federal_employee on

    TLDR: “Unusable” because they are too small after police cars mods and companies that mod cars into police cars don’t mod Teslas.

  3. Looks like there’s a market for someone to make bespoke EVs from the ground up for law enforcement, instead of modifying an existing EV with aftermarket parts.

  4. Divine_Cherryberry on

    This article is a straw man puff piece.

    They position the article to the reason why “the green agenda” and “electification of police” can’t work but when you read the actual complaints/concerns it very easily could have been about how some stupid group of police chiefs tried to buy a fleet of Kia Forte’s and determined they didn’t make good police cars either.

  5. Dreamboat_Sexy on

    Does Menlo Park buy stock Ford Explorer XLT’s for police duty? No, they buy the Police Interceptor package which has a VERY long list of upgrades to improve durability. And yet they bought stock Model Y’s, fitted them with lights/sirens/comms, and called it a day expecting the same results.

  6. Dulcet_Leopard on

    To me, this article is not about Tesla but about mismanagement of public funds. All the issues they had with the Tesla could have been found in an afternoon of testing.

  7. Enjoyable_Jaguar on

    Best point in the article: “in a firefight, hide behind the engine block.” With an EV you can hide behind a primed lithium bomb instead.

  8. I work for city IT, in and around cop cars a lot. I would honestly be very interested to see how they would hold up to almost 24/7 use for months. Not to mention the additional weight and electric load of all the bolt on parts/prisoner/suspect compartment/lights and other ancillaries.

    Between Tesla build quality, maintenance times, and unfriendliness to modification this seems like a stupid idea from the jump.

  9. Fords new hybrid interceptors, that are made for law enforcement. Are able to be ordered now, much better price and performance. Yes still uses gas but its a step in the right direction. The best part is, police do a lot of idleing, the hybrids only starts to charge the battery. It would be more environmentally friendly and the engines last longer. Its a better option at this time than Teslas.

  10. It is “northern California,” unless one can articulate the boundaries of this otherwise imaginary pronoun.