A California company is advertising ‘tactical response’ Tesla Cybertruck upgrades for police cruisers, including shotgun racks and sirens.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I will laugh my ass off when this thing breaks down and catches on fire during their “tactical response” after someone throws a water bottle at it.

    • adaveinthelife@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      I’m going to laugh my ass off when someone figures out how to track them all in real time, and shares it on a publicly accessible website.

    • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The first casualty of those battery fires is probably going to be someone handcuffed and locked in the back seat.

    • cole@lemdro.id
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      5 months ago

      battery fires are not at all common in electric vehicles. this is propaganda

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        On this planet, we have a concept called ‘humor,’ which involves exaggeration and absurdity for the purpose of getting a laugh. I hope this comes to your own world someday.

        • cole@lemdro.id
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          5 months ago

          repeat falsehoods often enough and people believe them, even if you originally mean them as a well-intentioned and obvious joke

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Sorry… are people repeating the falsehood that Cybertrucks catch fire if you throw a water bottle at them?

                • cole@lemdro.id
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                  5 months ago

                  you may have INTENDED to imply only that, but you did imply both unfortunately. I agree with you on the cyber truck part, but I deal with a lot of slightly more rural folks and the big fear RN with electric vehicles is somehow battery fires. which is crazy since they don’t happen anywhere near as often as gas vehicles. so I’m just trying to say we should be careful to avoid that particular cliche (the battery fire part) since it misleads people

  • ganksy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    With the all-wheel drive Cybertruck’s current $79,990 price, it stands to reason the combined taxpayer cost for a vehicle and new UP.FIT features could easily top $90,000. <

    I’d be pretty upset if my municipality was set to dump 100k on this trash.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      if they’re anything like the ICE cruisers… they’re dropping another shitload in up grades. custom-built gun vaults, as well as other specially-built storage … first aid, extra handcuffs. leg cuffs. Kiddie cuffs. flex-cuffs. evidence collection. Road safety stuffs. Flashlights. speed radar thingies. rolls of printer paper for citation printers. Cameras. spare uniforms. Condoms for the badgebunnies. extra batteries for radios. extra batteries for flashlights. batteries for cameras. extra uniforms. all sorts of bullshit paperwork and forms that only get filled out when they come a cross a karen. Door breaching and lock out tools

      needless to say, cops keep a lot of junk in the trunk. So much so the cop’s version of the ford explorer (“Police Interceptor Utility”) actually only has a special suspension to handle the extra weight, and 2 rows of seating instead of 3 to accommodate the entirely-custom storage rack.

      oh. you thought they were talking about body armor… naw. They get APC’s for that.

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        There is also the extra radio, sirens, lights, and some have built in radar and plate scanning cameras. I’m pretty sure there are extra batteries and a stronger alternator to keep systems powered and ensure engine starts if auxiliary power is drained.

        Different crusiers also have different set ups. Some are normal patrol cars while others have K-9 accomadations, shield and extra defensive gear, pursuit intervention tools like spikes and stop sticks. Cops use such a wide variety of tools that one crusier can’t fit every tool for every situation.

        • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          They’ve got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant. They’ve got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. They’re a model made before catalytic converters so they’ll run good on regular gas.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      And you’d have to ask what makes it a good police vehicle. An electric vehicle probably makes Sense, but I’m not sure there’s anything else about it that does. Certainly not the price tag.

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Idk. Cops can spend all day in their cruisers and blow through tons of fuel/power during a high speed chase. The EV would also have to power all the electronics on the cruiser including lights, sirens, radios, their laptop thing. Battery capacity might not be able to power the cruiser long enough. Especially if the crusier works a day and a night shift with different officers. Last thing a cop wants is back up cannot arrive because they are charging a battery.

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          You might have misunderstood, but I was saying the fact that it’s an EV is the only part that makes sense for a police cruiser (assuming they have enough to rotate them out while charging it can schedule that for breaks). Nothing else about the cyber truck makes sense.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      They’re gonna waste that money anyway. At least the cybertruck is dangerous enough that a few cops might die as a result.

      And can you really put a price on that?

  • Evotech@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Not sure that’s a great idea given that prisoners can simply escape using the gaps in the doors

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      OK I hate the guy and this “vehicle” too, but this is a weird take.

      Like if they bought Fords or Hyundais or whatever II wouldn’t consider it a handout; not getting why this would be?

      • exanime@lemmy.today
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        5 months ago

        Well, basically all Elon does derives a ton of money from the government…

        The cybertruck is objectively bad, I see no reason that car would be selected for police use which makes me think the “invisible” hand of the market (ahem, lobbying, bribing, etc) was involved

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I see no reason that car would be selected

          Then shouldn’t your objection be with whoever did the selecting?

          • exanime@lemmy.today
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            5 months ago

            I’ve seen too many times when the people doing the selecting do a good job just to be overridden by the paid-for bureaucrat

            But I’m just spitballing here, I have no evidence other than then strong doubt these cars could perform any regular job (they seem to be a poorly planned novelty item)

            • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              look they’ll do fine as long as they have a fleet of ford pickups to pull them out of mud puddles.

      • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Because they’re a notoriously bad design that is prone to failing on every front that Tesla claimed they were the ‘cutting edge’ on. They’re just BAD. The only way Tesla is going to sell out of their production line is by forcing someone to buy them, and it looks like it’s the US military.

        I wouldn’t think the same thing for Ford F150s, but I DEFINITELY would if suddenly we started hearing about police suddenly buying Fisher Price cars after hearing story after story of how they break down and leave toddlers stranded.

  • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I cant wait to see a cop fail to catch some Redneck driving the king of all shitboxes because the cop is driving a cybertruck and its litely drizzling outside.

  • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I feel there’s a great intersection of cops and those people who still buy into Elon’s bullshit. It couldn’t be any other way.

  • fpslem@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Any department that actually buys one of these turkeys is going to be very unhappy about the maintenance costs. Can’t park under trees, can’t let it get rained on, and if you’re in a medium-speed accident, the lack of crumple zone will injure your officers at higher rates.

    • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Can’t park under trees

      Well if we’re being fair, that’s a bad idea for all cop cars. Trees might drop very hostile acorns, forcing the officer to unload his gun.

        • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          That officer should not have been in that job. He should’ve known his PTSD was too much of an issue.

          I still pity him. He heard an acorn hit a car and was convinced he had been shot. Not shot at, shot. He thought he’d been hit by a bullet because an acorn landed on his car. His brain has been fucked by his time in the Army Special Forces.

          Fortunately the man being shot at was sitting in a police car. Unlikely they were gonna hit him regardless of aim.

    • Asifall@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      My first thought was that a couple cops are going to get hurt in traffic accidents and then their union is going to point to the increased injury rate as a reason for further militarization

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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    5 months ago

    Surely with their budgets and current level of militarisation, US police departments could afford real APCs/light infantry vehicles rather than this mall-ninja tacticool cosplay garbage.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      Bit of background on police cars. Mechanically, they’re not made to be especially fast, nor necessarily accelerate very quickly, nor handle particularly well. The police package modifications have more to do with endurance. A cop car isn’t going to do 180MPH, but it’s going to be able to do 110 for way longer than a regular production vehicle. A alot of that comes down to extra cooling: engine, transmission, power steering. Cop cars have steel wheels because they bend instead of shattering, and you can still drive on a bent wheel that holds air.

      Does the Cybertruck scream “reliable and high endurance”?

      Police vehicles also need to be generally multipurpose, to carry weapons, first aid, other gear, and detainees as necessary. This means they need to have enough room in the back seat for a partition, and accessible cargo space so that any particular thing can be quickly accessed. I can’t speak to the back seat of a Cybertruck, but that silly body line at the front of the bed makes a huge part of its cargo space useless. If you want to access stuff that’s up there, you’re going to have to climb in the back and crawl over everything, or unload a bunch of shit that’s in the way, like me looking for the fucking mayonaisse in my refrigerator after my wife has jammed it way too full of other shit. Maybe a Cybertruck could stand in for a State Police car that runs the interstates instead of a Dodge Charger. Maybe.

      Ever noticed how lots of police departments label their cars in very low contrast lettering? That’s so they can blend into traffic without being instantly noticeable as a police car. I think it’s obvious what I’m pointing out here.

      I also don’t think that a pure electric vehicle would ever be used for actual police work. Having to stick it on a charger for an hour, at least once a day, takes the vehicle and its driver out of service for much longer than just filling up a gas tank. Yeah, you might be able to coordinate the charging with “paperwork time,” but it’s still something worth considering.

      tl;dr: The Cybertruck is the worst police vehicle any department could ever choose.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        All spot on!

        Story: Some idiot company is trying to sell these things.

        Lemmy: LOL, cops are idiots!

        Who says anyone is purchasing this?!

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Ever noticed how lots of police departments label their cars in very low contrast lettering? That’s so they can blend into traffic without being instantly noticeable as a police car. I think it’s obvious what I’m pointing out here.

        you mean that automatic siren built into the body paneling isn’t gonna help them blend in?

    • kbin_space_program@kbin.run
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      5 months ago

      Particularly given that the design quality houses a whole slew of critically bad design choices.

      Like shock absorber brackets and axel mounts that can’t handle simple offroad loads.