Perhaps an electric BMW i3 wasn’t the best police car
The reasoning was sound. Los Angeles is a toxic, polluted nightmare thanks to the sheer volume of vehicles in a city of nearly 20 million souls, most of them sitting in traffic.
So when the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said it planned to phase out some of its internal combustion cars for electric alternatives, environmentalists had plenty to celebrate.
In June 2016 BMW of North America announced it had won the bid to lease the LAPD 100 fully-electric i3’s (not the ones with the range extender engine, but the pure EVs) for use in the department’s transportation fleet.
How’d it go? Not well, it seems. By early 2018 reports suggested many of the i3s had just a few thousand kilometres on the clock, and some were being used for non-official police duties.
Now, according to the US’s Bimmer Life website, they’re being sold off cut-price – still in their black and white panda colours (but sans LAPD livery) – with a number listed at LA’s New Century BMW dealership. Two were 2017 models with under 10,000-miles showing, up for just over USD$17,000 ($24,000).
It appears a classic case of too-early adopting. These older i3s had just a 22kWh battery pack, with a quoted range of only 81 miles, or 130 kilometres. LA’s finest must have suffered range anxiety, and didn’t fancy the idea of being stranded in the less salubrious parts of town with no range and nowhere to plug in. Can’t really blame them.
You were never going to see an i3 on COPS chasing down Camaro-sliding drug runners through Compton – the BMW EVs weren’t destined to be pursuit cars. They were employed as “non-emergency fleet vehicles … used as transportation vehicles for officers and in community outreach initiatives,” BMW North America said at the outset of the lease deal.
The police department also had 100 Level 2 chargers and four DC fast chargers installed. Bimmer Life said the cost to the taxpayer for the infrastructure and to lease the 100 i3s was over US$10million ($14 million). Oops.
The problem is not exclusive to Los Angeles. In the UK there’s been a concerted effort for its police forces to adopt hybrid and electric vehicles.
One of the largest, Kent Police, counts Nissan Leafs and a BMW i3 in its EV inventory. But in a statement last year it stated it “will need to consider the expense of electric vehicles. Plug-in electric cars do not have adequate range and they take too long to charge up which is a significant challenge for the force.”
Showing Aussie cops are a little more forward-thinking (and don’t mind getting flash with taxpayer dollars), Victoria Police bought a Tesla Model X Long Range outright last year. It was a circa-$150,000 car at the time, but makes sense with its quoted range of around 575km and 0-100km/h time of 4.6-seconds.
NSW Police, on the other hand, continue to splash big on $120,000 diesel-powered BMWs and Chrysler 300 SRT V8s that lack some active safety features and are among the thirstiest cars on the road.
Should global police forces continue to struggle with EV adoption, the positive is a glut of barely used electric ex-squad cars hitting the used market. I wonder if they’d let us keep the flashing lights and sirens?
