Police in Great Britain says all-electric cars – which have cost it at least £1.5M to this date – are too sluggish for chasing down criminals and take forever to recharge.
Multiple police officers have opined in interviews that electric cars were not the optimum choice for their line of work due to their speed limitations and slow charging times contrasted against rapid battery drain during normal daily use.
Despite this, Scotland Yard alone has already purchased 134 EVs, and the nationwide count is 448 and increasing. Scotland Yard says it plans a complete switch to all-electric transports by the year 2050 – if only to avoid having to pay £12.5 per day for trespassing in the country's Ultra-Low Emission Zones.
The police of London already has BMW, Toyota and Mitsubishi EVs in its car pool, but with things being the way they are, it will soon have to buy more diesel cars for street chases, as the EVs simply aren’t coping.
The police of Kent, which uses the electric BMW i3 and Nissan Leaf, concurs with its colleagues from London, admitting that battery-powered vehicles are still lacking in dynamic performance and range for most law enforcement applications.