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.”
Not sure why number 1 is apparently a thing. My Model 3’s back seat is the same size as any other similarly sized vehicle. So unless the retrofits are somehow inherently different to create that prisoner compartments this shouldn’t be any different than any other sedan.
And 3 isn’t a massive difference either unless you treat charging like filling up a gas tank to full every time and don’t even consider something like a partial charge for only 5 or 10 minutes. It’s just a difference in planning and assumptions, something some people seem to have difficulty with for whatever reason. With a low state of charge, supercharging speeds are extremely fast. You don’t have to sit there and fully charge every time.
In my mind there is some legitimacy to #1. Police cars I’ve seen install a separate bulkhead between the front and backseats and this usually takes up a LOT of room. I was able to sit in the back of one of the old Ford Crown Victoria converted police cars at a public event. I’m 6’ and could not have my legs straight (my femurs are too long). The back seat of a Model 3 is significantly smaller than a Ford Crown Vic.
Here’s a picture from of an example:
I don’t have enough information to know how police use cars to offer an opinion on this. If they are constantly in motion, like taxi cabs are, then this could be a legitimate concern. If they are frequently parked and idling, then a near future technology solution of wireless charging could address this.
Are there still Crown Vics anywhere? It seems like most cruisers are now Ford Explorers
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.
Yeah but a model 3 is not a large car. Compare to something like a Crown Vic, the de facto standard for a police cruiser for a long time.