In the eight days since Tesla launched their new Cybertruck they have received 250,000 pre-orders. Amongst them, the Dubai police force. To think Robocop only had a Ford Taurus…
Tesla – the future of law enforcement?
Twitter has responded with humour, but Dubai police force weren’t joking! They have pre-ordered the Tesla Cybertruck, according to their Tweet.
شرطة دبي – 2020 – Dubai Police #CyberTruck pic.twitter.com/V9rMPLgjS4
— Dubai Policeشرطة دبي (@DubaiPoliceHQ) November 26, 2019
This won’t be produced until at least the end of 2020, depending on which specification they have ordered. We don’t know whether we’re talking about a fleet or just one or two Cybertrucks.
The Cybertruck won’t be the first super vehicle Dubai police has bought. Arabian Business reports that this already includes an Aston Martin One-77, a Bentley Continental GT, a Bugatti Veyron, a Ferrari FF and a Lamborghini Aventador.
To serve and protect
Choosing the Cybertruck might not be such a wild idea. We looked at the construction of the new Tesla prior to launch and, considering the requirements of law enforcement vehicles, the truck would match it’s intimidating appearance with performance.
The truck offers acceleration of 0-60mph in under 2.9 seconds and is able to tow up to 14,000lbs. With a 500 mile range per charge, the bad guys will have a hard time getting away from this beast. Even if they are in a Ford F-150 (sorry Sunny, just a joke!).
There is also an environmental positive about the public sector choosing electric cars over petrol!
Was this the plan all along?
I think Elon Musk has always been aiming at making the Cybertruck the ultimate security vehicle. There are many aspects of the design which point to protection and the utilitarian outer appearance seems made for law enforcement.
With a cold rolled stainless steel body, this is for all intents and purposes a fancy armoured truck, and the reinforced glass – when it works – is supposed to be unbreakable. Let’s hope that deliberate error is fixed in production!
At the live launch event, Musk even described the Cybertruck as an ‘armoured personnel carrier from the future‘.
Investing in the future
In the UK, we don’t tend to see police driving Ferraris, but high performance cars are used in traffic enforcement.
The most common police cars include the BMW 3 Series, BMW X5 and Land Rover Discovery. Using the X5 as an example, it has a towing weight of 1,900kg. That isn’t a patch on the 6,350kg the Cybertruck can handle.
An X5 is powered by a 6-cylinder petrol engine and reaches speeds of 0-62mph in 5.5 seconds. This is by no means a low performance car, but is almost twice as slow as the Cybertruck.
In terms of budget, a new X5 would set you back about £60,000. Assuming that Dubai will order the top spec Tesla, this comes in at $69,900 which is around £54,000.
Looking at the figures, the Cybertruck is cheaper, faster, electric and performs better than anything we have on the roads!
Initially I thought this was a gimmick, but having given it some thought, I can see why this might not be a PR stunt, but a very sound investment.
Do you agree? How would you feel about our police force using Cybertrucks? And, most importantly, where are they going to put the detainees…?
