While the P85D showed potential as a high-speed pursuit vehicle, the obvious limitation was price. The Tesla Model S simply costs too much to be feasible right now. But the LAPD was also testing the BMW i3, and apparently it performed well enough for the department to buy more of them. Last month, we reported that the Los Angeles Police Department was evaluating the Tesla Model S for potential police use.
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The Verge reports that BMW has won a contract to supply the LAPD with 100 of its tiny electric cars. Under the city’s “Sustainable City pLAn,”— someone got paid way too much money to come up with that—by 2017, half of the department’s light-duty vehicle purchases will have to be electric, and this agreement is the first step toward that.
Unsurprisingly, high-speed pursuits will still be left to conventional police cars. According to The Verge, the LAPD will instead use its BMW i3s for “non-emergency” purposes.
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In order to charge its new fleet of pint-sized electric police cars, the LAPD will be working with Greenlots, a company that manages EV chargers. In a press release today, the company said that it will install 100 Level 2 chargers and four DC Fast Charge stations for the department.
Greenlots says the cars were scheduled for delivery this spring, so Los Angeles residents should expect see officers patrolling the city in their shiny new i3s very soon.
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