September 27, 2019—A police officer with the Fremont, Calif. Police was forced to call off a pursuit when his Tesla patrol car’s battery was running low in the middle of the chase, reports Fox News.
“Just slowed down to six miles of battery on the Tesla, so I may lose it here in a sec,” the officer in the pursuit said, according to police radio transmissions obtained by KPIX 5. “If someone else is able, can they maneuver into the No. 1 spot?”
From there, other officers took on the pursuit, but was called off after it was deemed unsafe due to the reckless driving of the suspect. The suspect’s vehicle was later found abandoned in San Jose, Calif.
The Fremont Police Department is in the middle of its pilot program, where they are testing out using 2014 Tesla model S 85s. This is part of Fremont and California’s push to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
“The Tesla wasn’t fully charged at the beginning of the shift,” a Fremont police spokesperson told the KPIX 5. “This, unfortunately, happens from time to time, even in our vehicles that run on gas, if they aren’t refueled at the end of a shift.”
A spokeswoman from the police department told CNN the general guidelines laid out state the vehicle should be at least half-full at the beginning of a shift, as the patrol car was like intended.
