Cops Don’t Love Teslas After All

In California, the Irvine Police Department recently got a lot of attention after it released a flashy promotional video showing off its new Tesla Cybertruck. The video has a bit of an eerie feeling to it due in part to the fact that it uses music from the Terminator movie franchise, in which the cops are not exactly the good guys. 

Irvine PD claims that this is the first Tesla Cybertruck to be used as a police vehicle, although it’s only being used for the D.A.R.E. anti-drug program and not on patrol. Taxpaying residents surely love that. 

You might wonder though, are Tesla’s good as actual, real-deal, crime-fighting police vehicles? EVs have fast acceleration, steering, and impressive top speeds, so they might seem ideal. 

SFGate looked into this very question, speaking with three police departments in Northern California who have already tried adding Tesla’s to their fleets. And although none came away pessimistic about the electric cars, they weren’t terribly enthusiastic about them either. But their complaints also highlight an issue for EVs in general, not just as they relate to law enforcement use. 

It seems intuitive that charging might be the biggest issue for police who have to drive around all day, but it wasn’t really. Instead, the two issues police chiefs highlighted most were the size of the vehicles and customization. 

Ukiah Police Department in Mendocino County moved to purchase two Model 3s after the city council there passed a resolution in 2022 directing departments to convert to green vehicles wherever possible. Police Chief Cedric Crook told SFGate that two Model 3s with modifications for police-readiness came to $150,000. 

The first issue he mentioned with the cars were those modifications. Teslas are notoriously difficult to get serviced or customized under normal conditions, and police need a slew of additions including emergency lights, push bars, partitions, and ballistic panels to toughen them up. The only place to modify Teslas in such a way seems to be Unplugged Performance in Hawthorne, which also modified the Cybertruck for Irvine PD. Crook learned after contacting Unplugged that it would take months to customize the Model 3s—and he’d have to transport them hundreds of miles to Southern California first. 

That’s an annoyance, but cabin size was ultimately a deal-breaker. Crook found that the Model 3s back seats “only have room for one prisoner,” limiting the ability to sequester multiple suspects at a time. And the duty belts that officers wear can add a lot of weight and bulk to their torso, apparently making it difficult to get in and out of the Model 3s slim driver’s seat. Another police department in Menlo Park, right near Tesla’s Palo Alto HQ, made the same complaint—and they were using roomier Model Y crossovers. Adding a partition separating the front and back seats reduced available space up front where the center console and police computer are located. “Officers reported the cramped cabin caused their duty belts and bulletproof vests to jut into the passenger seat, ‘making it nearly unusable’,” SFGate discovered. 

Crooks still has to wait six months for the vehicles to finish being modified, but for the other reasons mentioned, decided they will just be used by administrative staff. Again, taxpayers must love $150,000 being spent on two cars for paper-pushers.

In Fort Bragg, the police department opted for Ford F-150 Lightnings instead of Teslas, and the police chief reported they are quite satisfied with them. The vehicle is more of an obvious pick because its design is nearly identical to the gas-powered F-150. That’s good because they’re apparently similar enough to the combustion version that both parts and mechanics who can work on them are readily available. He feared the Teslas would be stuck in the shop too often. 

The design of the F-150, he said, is also just more conducive to police work than a 3 or Y. In particular, its high clearance is important for jumping curbs and off-road use. This is one that all the police departments in the stories mentioned—the Teslas sit too low. The F-150 in particular is also ideal just because it has a truck bed where police equipment, bikes, and other tools can be stored. 

Of course, a Cybertruck should be able to address some of these issues. But customization and repairability are still an issue, and Cybertrucks are massive. Fort Bragg, where they chose F-150 Lightnings, is a small and isolated place on the coast. Police surely need a smaller patrol car for urban environments, and Tesla’s Model 3 and Y are not quite designed for it.

Ultimately a big complaint that even civilians have about EVs is that there are not enough options to choose from that appeal to every particular niche, so the complaints from police are not crazy. There are too few options in EVs, and combustion vehicles benefit from decades of infrastructure built around them.