THE MORNING RANT: A Police Department - in Hurricane Country - is Getting EV Patrol Cars; How Many Ways Can This Go Wrong?

The feedback and tips I receive from readers are sometimes the genesis for posts. But occasionally there is correspondence, such as this one from a reader who comments under the name “WunderKraut,” and rather than try to extract parts of it, I am just going to use the whole darn thing (with his consent.)

WunderKraut sent me the following link, about a police department in South Georgia which just took delivery of four Tesla Model Y vehicles, several of which will be put into patrol duty.

“Douglas Police Department unveils new Tesla patrol and administrative vehicles” [WALB – Albany, GA – 6/26/2024]

Rather than choosing the typical Ford, Dodge, or Chevy cars DPD typically purchases, they have made the decision to invest in 4 new Tesla Model Y vehicles. These vehicles arrived on Friday, Aug. 23, and will be in full operation before the end of December 2024.

The Tesla Model Y vehicles are a part of the city’s electric vehicle pilot program and are expected to help reduce costs for both the Police Department and the community. In addition, the vehicles are expected to reduce environmental impacts.

Mr. Kraut does not live in Douglas, but he lives in another nearby town that was hit hard by Hurricane Michael, which was still a Category 1 hurricane when it passed through in October 2018. The absurdity of using an electric vehicle as a police cruiser goes way beyond storm-related power outages, and Mr. Kraut covers those issues well.

Here is what he wrote:

Absolutely insane. And here are the reasons why this is insane:

1. Accessibility

• Who needs to be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – Police
• Who doesn’t have time to charge their car if there is an emergency – Police
• Who responds when there is a disaster in the community, most of the time involving severe weather down in these parts – Police
• What happens during periods of severe weather – the power is lost
• What can’t be charged without power – EV

To demonstrate the absurdity of EVs as first responders, Hurricane Michael hit our town as a Cat 1. We were without power for 5 days and friends of ours were 7-10 days. Below is a map of Michael’s path showing the county in question. While they [the town of Douglas] did not get hit directly, they are close enough to the Atlantic and the Gulf that odds are, at the least, a tropical storm will hit that area, impacting power supply for days.

2. Functionality

• Who drives at high speeds to answer calls or stop criminals – Police
• Who does PIT maneuvers to stop said criminals – Police
• How well will the battery pack of an EV stand up to the impacts required for PIT maneuvers and other high speed police functions?
• In the event of a successful PIT maneuver, what if the battery pack is compromised and the car quickly becomes engulfed in flames?
• What if the battery pack is unknowingly damaged during use and the EV burns down the parking lot with internal combustion police cruisers?
• What if the battery pack goes up in flames due to unseen damage when the EV is adjacent to a firetruck? Firetrucks cost $500,000 minimum.

3. Cost Savings

• I know and work with a lot of police personnel. They may drive 100 miles in a shift, but they are sitting idle for hours and hours. Are they willing to bet the life of a police officer that the battery power will last an entire shift?
• I do not see any real cost savings with an EV. They talk about fuel, but they don’t mention the cost of charging. Plus the added cost of special EV tires. Plus any scheduled maintenance probably can’t be done in the rural county, meaning the car will have to be shipped somewhere.

Anyway, just my two cents. If this madness is happening down here, then it will probably come to my town next.

Having read all this, I’m now curious about the rest of the story. For a small, rural city like Douglas, GA to make such a colossally bad decision, there likely had to be other incentives, by which I mean taxpayer money of some sort finding its way to Douglas to motivate its PD to engage in an “electric vehicle pilot program.” None of the local news stories or city press releases I’ve dug up mention any financial incentives. If any readers have any knowledge of the unseen hands that would guide a town such as Douglas, GA to buy electric police cruisers, please let me know at the email address below. I certainly hope Georgia taxpayer money isn’t being used for this boondoggle.

Thank you, WunderKraut, for that outstanding contribution.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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