Among the spectacularly bad ideas politicians foist on Normal Americans are Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates. Worse is mandating electric vehicles for police vehicles. As one might expect, early adopters of this idiocy are California police departments:

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. Police Chief Cedric Crook for the Ukiah, California police department told San Francisco Gate he doesn’t think the department’s Model 3s will see action any time soon…

Graphic: X Screenshot

Police cars are, as we used to put it in Wyoming, “rid hard and put away wet.” They can easily exceed 100,000 miles in 18 months, and by then they’re usually ready for the scrap heap. They have to be able to run 24/7/365 with often inadequate maintenance, and they wear out tires in as little as 8,000 miles. They’re constantly running, have enormous electric power drain, need full force heat in winter, full force air conditioning in summer, and have to be refueled toward the end of every shift unless call volume prevents it, then the next shift has to find time. Internal combustion engined (ICE) vehicles can handle it.  EVs can’t.

Few EVs, other than full sized SUVs, are large enough for all the equipment police vehicles have to carry, to say nothing of transporting prisoners. There aren’t many EV SUVs on the market, and they’re ridiculously expensive. But for the sake of argument, let’s proceed.

*An EV with a supposed 300-mile range actually has much less, because they’re not supposed to charge to more than 80% capacity. Some can do this in about an hour, but to go to 100% takes hours longer to avoid battery overheating, which can result in unquenchable flames.

*A fleet of EVs also requires a fleet of EV chargers, the fastest sort, which are very expensive to buy and install. They’ve also proved to be largely unreliable. Whether it would be possible to install the electric infrastructure necessary to power such a fleet at any cost is another issue.

*EVs cost at least double ICE vehicles.

*All the electric accessories required in police vehicles drain EV batteries very quickly, reducing a 240-mile possible range to perhaps 140 miles.  Running heat in winter and A/C in summer will drop range to well below 100 miles, and heat and cold drop it even more.

*EVs accelerate like mad, which on one hand is great for police vehicles, but on the other, also drops range, and because EVs weigh at least 1000 pounds more than comparable ICE vehicles, wears out tires at an incredible rate. That extra weight also makes EVs less then nimble handlers.

*EV weight is also hell on brakes, particularly in police use.

*Because of charging time, any police force will have to buy enough EVs to replace vehicles down for charging. Officers can’t afford less than fully charged—80%--vehicles to begin shifts. Even if a force tries to rotate charging times, at least half, if not more, of the vehicles will be down charging at any given time, requiring a fleet at least twice as large as required with ICE vehicles.

Even if an agency issued take-home vehicles to each officer, there would still need to be charged spares available. That method would make EVs slightly more viable and they’d last longer, but the expense of buying that size fleet would be impossible. They’d also have to supply each officer with a fast charger, and because most young officers live in apartments, that too would be impossible.

*Police operations in an EV fleet would be dependent almost entirely on EV range and charging infrastructure rather than the needs of the force in responding to emergencies.

*As I earlier mentioned, there are no EVs on the market large enough to meet police needs. In fact, many police agencies have turned to the Ford Explorer police packages as sedans are no longer large enough.

Several years ago, New York City tried to push Mustang Mach E EVs on their police department. For the aforementioned reasons it didn’t go well. An ICE Mustang runs from 3500-3900 pounds. The Mach E, 5001. Add in all the other goodies a police cruiser needs, and you’re easily pushing 5500. That’s nearly as much as a full-sized F-150 pickup.

EV police vehicles, even more than non-police EVs, remain an unaffordable, impractical pipe dream. That assumes, of course, our political leaders actually care about public safety.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.