A couple police departments have started fielding Chevy Bolts as patrol cars/interceptors and it seems early impressions have been positive, the battery charge can easily last a full shift, sub 6 second 0-60 times for pursuit, don't need to burn fuel keeping the lights and accessories running on work detail etc.
They're near completely silent at low speed lets you sneak up on situations, the base model price prior to conversion is pretty easy on the budget
Yeah, I can see that. The back seat is a bit small though. If you put in a screen to protect the officer there won't be room left for feet.
Some police departments use the same vehicle on all three shifts. With the Bolt requiring an hour or two to charge up that might be a problem even if you only charge every other shift. I guess they can charge on their meal break.
The local police department here has a fleet of around ten late-model Police Interceptor blacked-out Ford Explorers, couple of Police PURSUIT Dodge Challenger/Chargers:
and a couple of late model Harley police motorcycles for "crowd control."
The town's population is about 8,000 people it's kind of absurd
Air-conditioners are heat pumps, and ought to be able to work both ways.
Running our flat's air-conditioner as a heat pump in winter is a not a regular occuurence in Sydney, but I've done it from time to time.
You tend to need bigger heat pump to keep you warm in winter in colder places than you need to keep you cool in summer, but cars are designed to work over a wide range of environments.
The AC compressor is run from the battery, naturally. It's not really a significant drain; in my Volt on a 90 degree day it draws about 3kW on startup for a few minutes to get the cabin down to about 75 and can then maintain that temperature while driving drawing about 500-700 watts. By comparison maintaining 50-55 mph on level ground draws around 12kW, maybe a bit more in the Bolt due to worse drag coefficient.
Heating is resistive, with everything on full blast max temp the heater draws around 5-6kW. You'll be sweating real fast with it like that though for most deep winter days around here 2kW is enough.
If the temperature is above freezing the heated seats and steering wheel are usually enough to be perfectly comfortable, that combo draws around
500 watts.
There are some patents by Tesla to use waste heat from the battery coolant loop to warm the cabin via a heat exchanger but probably not worth the cost on a ~$35k car, I don't know if they even use that system in the Model 3.
Don't know why people think the AC is such a significant power drain, it's not. The cabin is like 150 cubic feet, a 5000BTU window AC unit draws maybe 1000 watts max and can cool a 1000 square foot apartment pretty nicely.
But conversely I don't particularly want the job of hunting down criminals and psychopaths and and stringing them up myself, though. It's a job that needs doing but not particularly what I want to do with my life.
There are some people who want to do that with their life but they tend to be the "Oh, we insist"-type when it comes time to pay up for their services. Hard to have it both ways, bit of a takes-one-to-know-one situation I think.
In some sense "government inefficiency" is a hedge against tyranny. Which would you prefer, an inefficient government that's too buried under paperwork to worry very much about what you're up to, or a very efficient kind that shoots you quick?
There isn't any. Douchebags who drive those things are too cool to need AC. And in the winter they're warmed by their own sense of smug self- satisfaction.
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If this were in any way realistic, Cursitor Doom's sense of smug self-satifaction would long ago have incinerated him. Sadly, it doesn't seem to have happened.
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