After police departments in California found Teslas to be “nearly unusable” as EV police cruisers, Lucid is starting to eye getting in the police cruiser business. In an announcement tweet on X, the EV automaker said its Lucid Air participated in vehicle testing for California’s Highway Patrol.
Lucid showed off what an Air would look like done up in CHP livery and it looks good. From the futuristic looking CHP badge with lightning bolts surrounding the California Bear to the all black steelies, it’s giving fun police state. And just to let you know that this thing isn’t playing around, the rear fenders have “Protect & Swerve” badging.
That protect and swerve might sound like a joke, but given the Air’s performance specs, I wouldn’t laugh. Even a base Air boasts 450 horsepower and is able to hit 60 in under five seconds. And with 450 miles of range, officers would have plenty of power and range to patrol California’s highways and freeways before needing to charge.
Not much else is known about the vehicle testing. Aside from the tweet on X and the photos, Lucid didn’t share much information; CHP had no information at all about the testing. I reached out to both and will update this post if either replies.
If CHP chooses to add Lucid Airs to its patrol fleet, it would be the latest California police agency to go electric. The transition has been met with mixed results. While the city of South Pasadena has so far had no hiccups with replacing its city’s entire police vehicle fleet with Teslas, other cities have had issues. The northern California city of Ukiah’s police department has called its fleet of Tesla Model 3s nearly unusable because of their size and range limitations; the city of Irvine recent purchase of a Tesla Cybertruck for “community engagement” has divided many. And famously, the LAPD purchased $3 million worth of BMW i3s back in 2018 only to never use them and then sell them off for pennies.
