“I still find it shocking that six years after 9/11 our country’s 800,000 women and men in uniform are patrolling our communities in a vehicle designed in the 1970s as a retail passenger car with some lights on it,” Li said, “and somehow the fire department has their own vehicles, the hospitals have their own ambulances, the military has a huge fleet of purpose-built vehicles. Jeez, your mailman and your garbage man have a special purpose-built vehicle". -William Santana Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Carbon Motors Corp
An interesting article while we still drive around in 175,000 mile Crown Vics.
10 comments:
My name is Chris Battle, and I work with Carbon Motors, the company that is designing and building the Carbon E7, the car you are referring to. I encourage you to visit Carbon's website at www.carbonmotors.com for more information and specific details on the car. And, more importantly, to encourage other law enforcement employees to join the Carbon Council.
The Carbon Council is comprised entirely of working police officers and law enforcement admin staff. It is Carbon's way of working directly, day in and day out, with legitimate law enforcement to ensure that the E7 delivers everything law enforcement needs to assist and protect them in their jobs.
Joining the Carbon Council is no charge and comes with no commitment whatsoever. Its only purpose is to get candid advice from the customer.
The E7's motto is: Designed by law enforcement for law enforcement. Your input is greatly valued.
Also, for those who don't have a subscription to CQ Homeland Security (where the story was published), the story has been published in full on a blog called Security Debrief, which got permission to re-publish the story.
You can read it at:
http://securitydebrief.adfero.com/if-you-build-a-better-police-car-will-law-enforcement-buy-it/
Dear Chris Battle:
Keep up the good work. I'm sure a lot of police departments will look at your organization with it's cutting edge ideas and adopt them.
However, ours is not one of them. You would have a better chance at eating the Carbon E7 than Daley buying itl.
I just saw a brand new (work) suv type vehicle. guess who was driving it? TMA
is this something new?
thats why nobosy does anything for this shity
Its a true statement.Why doesnt one of the big three make a vehicle truly designed for LE??The Crown Vic is ok,the other abortions were...um...abortions.The Sable??The Impala...what a joke.
Gas guzzlers like Tahoes,Expeditions,Explorers.They handle like pigs,make terrible patrol vehicles,and most depts never use them for the Command/Incident role.
Diesel engines make more sense for most LE applications.Coupled with Bio-diesel blended fuel,is a much cleaner power plant.
I bought a new car. In the suburbs. Dealer asked me how the city bought vehicles. Told him it was a political inside deal, no one could touch it. Specified contractor. Chris Battle could discover a cure for cancer, Daley would tell hiom he took to long to do it.
Give me back my Caprice.
The big reason why the big auto makers do not make a specific design for the law enforcement market is that the market is too small to justify the expense.
It is no one market either. The urban patrol market, like the city of Chicago, vs a highway cruiser in wide open areas like Texas or New Mexico. And some need 4WD. Plus specialty vehicles, like squadrols.
Read somewhere that the total law enforcement vehicle market is about 40,000 units a year. Not a lot in a 5,000,000+ vehicle market. And that 40,000 is in a good year.
To develop a vehicle that conforms to all Fed safety standards, including crash tests and EPA requirements, including the 50,000 mile emission durability test, developing special parts, is very expensive. That is why police vehicles use off-the-shelf parts. And they run the production line at the end of the model year, to clear out unsold vehicles.
As for the Carbon Motors, what are they talking price wise? What about maintainability, ease of repair, price of spare parts??
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