Anaheim Police Department set to launch new Tesla police vehicles

The Anaheim Police Department is rolling out its latest addition to its fleet of vehicles. The department now has six Tesla Model Y's ready for patrol duty.

"We were able to get these directly from Tesla's current inventory," said Sgt. Jacob Gallacher.

Anaheim police was in dire need of new police cars.

"COVID vehicle production stopped," said Gallacher. "We have an aging fleet, and some of the vehicles that we've been trying to purchase have taken an extended period of time."

The Anaheim City Council approved the $320,000 pilot program six weeks ago. Gallacher said two of the new police units are ready to go. The other four Teslas will be launched once they're ready.

"The Tesla does cost a little bit more than a traditional police vehicle, however, over the life cycle of the car, the city will actually make out on it because of maintenance cost as well as fuel savings," said Gallacher.

He said 16 officers are training to drive the new EV units and will conduct daily evaluations on the cars' performance to see if they're a good fit.

"We plan to charge them to 80% every day, so that will be about 260 miles of range," he said. "Our officers drive between 80 and 120 miles a day."

APD will monitor reliability and cost-effectiveness in various settings. However, some people like James Poston are skeptical about how the cars will perform as patrol vehicles.

"You have to be the first ones, right?" Poston said. "You're not going to figure this out until you get one of these on the streets and you start going and patrolling and figuring out what your needs are."

The department said it's ready to put the Teslas to the test.

"If they don't work in patrol then there are options to put them maybe a community policing team or use them as school resource officers," said Gallacher.

Even though other Southern California police agencies have launched the use electric vehicles, Anaheim police hopes to be the first in a different way.

"We would like to be the first agency in Orange County to have a Cybertruck so Elon, if you're watching and want to donate a Cybertruck, we'd love to have a Cybertruck," Gallacher said.

The police department said these cars will help with community engagement and they hope to have them out on the streets in the next couple weeks.