The Anaheim Police Department said it wanted to be the first department with a Cybertruck, according to an internal email obtained by 404 Media. But the company advertising the modified vehicles hasn’t actually made one yet, the police said.
A California police department wants to be the first agency to have a law enforcement-branded Cybertruck, according to an internal email obtained by 404 Media.
The email Sergeant Jacob Gallacher, of the Anaheim Police Department, sent in early February read “P.S. I spoke with the Chief yesterday and we still want to be the first police agency to have a Cybertruck. If anyone can make that happen, I know it is you!” Gallacher sent the email to James Hedland from UP.FIT, a company that sells modified Teslas for use by law enforcement. The email was part of a conversation about the department’s use of Teslas.
Gallacher later told 404 Media that the email was something of “a joke,” but reaffirmed the agency’s wish to obtain a Cybertruck before other agencies, even if more for “community engagement” than using it as a patrol vehicle.
“We would, but it’s not necessarily from a patrol perspective,” Gallacher said. 404 Media obtained the email through a public records request.
You're talking as if they were ever able to graduate elementary school. The last time I saw police near an elementary school they were too scared to go in
OK, I'll argue for the cops on this one. Just this once!
Community engagement is a real thing, gets people talking to cops who otherwise wouldn't. And that can be a positive experience all around.
For example; The Tulsa cops had a bitchin' (my 80s coming out) Corvette Stingray they showed off at the fair and every other chance they had. They had quite an audience gathered around, talking about the car at first and then asking questions about LE.
Idea being, it's not supposed to be a regular cruiser.
Ok. They could put police lights on a weiner mobile too. That would get a ton of community engagement. But for some reason I can't put my finger on, they have chosen a very expensive tiny dick toy instead.
Yeah, brutalist and brutal are different. The cyber truck is a fucking stupid design that will hurt people far more than most vehicles (big dumb truck hoods not withstanding).
They aren’t even going to be able to sell them anywhere that has reasonable pedestrian safety laws. CA needs to pass some and kill the fucking thing, not give them to cops who already want to kill anyone who makes them nervous.
I've always thought these looked like they belong in a science-fiction b-movie. With the blue paint and police lights on top, they really look like they're from a RoboCop knock-off film.
Part of being the police is advertising that there are police here, as a deterrent. This works well for that.
But another part is having fast, reliable vehicles able to out maneuver other cars on the road, to stop criminals after the fact. Not so good at that part.
Sort of. EVs are very fast off the line, but generally very heavy. It might be good for handing out speeding tickets on a freeway, but a pursuit on surface streets would probably not go as well.
It's also a fairly tall EV. I bet if you slid into a curb or something, it'll roll like Peppy Hare.
Assuming the thing worked as advertised and they get a VERY steep discount, it might be a good idea?
It doesn't surprise me that cops want something that is ugly and tacky and completely unnecessary. And they'll use a shit ton of taxpayer money to get it too.
Imagine the fingers that will be lost in the trunk and the heads that will be smacked into the steel roof until it just looks like the top of the doors are painted red.
When people lose random limbs, they can argue the person tried to resist the arrestment and got in between the moving parts. It totally wasn't on purpose.
That is exactly my expectation. Put their hands on the trunk while they frisk them, "accidentally" hit the trunk close button, then either the person loses fingers or gets shot for resisting arrest when they move them out of the way.
Fast acceleration and low fuel use might be desirable characteristics for a police vehicle, but that seems like a kind of pricey vehicle to be used in a role that one expects wear-and-tear in.
thinks
Sometimes police need to sit in their car idle for a long time. If the traction battery in the Cybertruck can be used to drive accessories (like, if there's an inverter or something driven by the traction battery), that might be useful. My understanding is that a number of EVs don't permit for that, though.
The Cybertruck explicitly advertises its 120/240vac inverter for 'job site tools' and other similar uses; then voids your warranty if you actually use it 'while stationary'.
The Cybertruck explicitly advertises its 120/240vac inverter for ‘job site tools’ and other similar uses
Oh, that's nice.
then voids your warranty if you actually use it ‘while stationary’.
That's not.
Hmm. I wonder if it's because adding extra charge/discharge cycles eats into battery life, which is probably a major bound on the car's life.
considers
Honestly, if EVs don't have a way to read charge/discharge count in a way that's hard-for-potential-resellers-to-fiddle-with the way odometers are, they probably should, and EV sales should probably list that number the way cars do mileage today, as a measurement of "wear".
EDIT: And at least for the battery, the warranty should probably be on the number of charge/discharge cycles, not on the distance traveled.