Sheriff Kevin McMahill stood before nearly a dozen Tesla Cybertrucks this week and declared: “Welcome to the future of policing.” Corruption. Preventable death. Silicon Valley billionaire tax shelter.
When asked about cost comparisons of the undesireable dodo-trucks to standard police vehicles, McMahill admitted:
“We haven’t done a cost comparison yet.”
Record scratch.
Las Vegas Metro adopted 10 Cybertrucks from Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz, allowing him to claim $8-9 million value? And that’s that? Are we supposed to believe a town that runs on casinos can’t do the math?
Here’s the scam analysis they refused to do:
| Cost Category (10 years) | 10 Cybertrucks | 10 Ford Interceptors | Delta |
| Purchase & Upfitting | $0 | $600,000 | -$600,000 |
| Charging Infrastructure | $80,000 | $0 | +$80,000 |
| Training | $100,000 | $5,000 | +$95,000 |
| Insurance | $800,000 | $300,000 | +$500,000 |
| Maintenance | $550,000 | $200,000 | +$350,000 |
| Parts delays coverage | $100,000 | $20,000 | +$80,000 |
| Software subscriptions | $120,000 | $0 | +$120,000 |
| Fuel/Electricity | $36,000 | $180,000 | -$144,000 |
| Battery replacement | $250,000 | $0 | +$250,000 |
| Resale/Disposal | -$80,000 | -$50,000 | +$30,000 |
| Total | $2,036,000 | $1,285,000 | +$751,000 |
Translation:
Horowitz claims a $3.6M tax deduction he doesn’t need.
Las Vegas taxpayers get stuck with a $751,000 more over ten years.
Tesla gets to claim it sold more than zero Cybertrucks.
How many preventable injuries/deaths occur because a police chief did a billionaire a favor instead of… a duty to perform basic safety analysis?
McMahill himself admitted that police departments deploying electric vehicles “are only getting six or seven hours of use out of them” on 10-hour shifts.
He said the vehicle is unfit for use, while announcing deployment anyway.
Oh, but it’s far worse. Steer-by-wire systems in Cybertrucks operate without mechanical backup. When the system fails, steering fails. Current litigation involving Cybertruck crashes has documented these failure modes through CAN bus data analysis.
Single-point-of-failure systems don’t belong in emergency response vehicles.
The Cybertruck is a dubious waste of time and money at best, and a sudden death trap at worst.
What happens next:
- Right away: Officer battery dies mid-response and has to call backup, delayed. Incident escalates.
- Soon: Steer-by-wire fails during pursuit, like in Piedmont. Crash occurs. Lawsuit filed.
- Later: 12V battery failure bricks vehicle during shift. Officer stranded.
- Eventually: Vehicles reassigned to “community outreach.” Department buys from actual engineers instead of giving tax shelters to billionaires.
Risk projection over 5 years:
| Incident Type | Expected Frequency |
| Battery failures stranding officers | 15-25 |
| 12V system failures disabling vehicle | 10-20 |
| Steer-by-wire failures during pursuit | 3-8 |
| Fatalities from system failure | 1-2 |
| Serious injuries | 3-8 |
These projections use Tesla’s civilian fleet incident rates adjusted for police operational stress: high-speed pursuits, emergency response requirements, mandatory 10-12 hour shifts in vehicles rated for 6-7 hours.
What Horowitz actually dumped:
- Depreciating assets with unknown police-use reliability
- Vendor lock-in to Tesla’s service monopoly
- $751,000 in excess operational costs
- Unlimited liability exposure for system failures
- Officers as disposable guinea pigs for unproven technology, let alone everyone around them
This isn’t speculation. Other departments already failed:
- Bargersville, IN: Abandoned EV expansion. Officers refused to trust range during emergencies.
- Ukiah, CA: Relegated to administrative use. Chief: “Great for parking enforcement, useless for real police work.”
- Fort Lauderdale, FL: Insurance 2.4x higher. Service downtime 18 days vs. 3 days for Ford fleet.
- Hastings-on-Hudson, NY: Required supplemental gas vehicles. Community complaints about “looking for chargers instead of patrolling.”
What Horowitz received:
- $3.6M tax deduction (at 40% rate)
- Police PR about vehicle the public hates
- A place to dump failure to cook Tesla numbers
Net result: Horowitz profits $1.6 million while offloading huge deadly liability onto Vegas taxpayers and visitors.
Tesladeaths.com documents approximately 500 deaths linked to Tesla vehicles. Those were civilians who chose to buy them, who could choose when to drive them, who weren’t mandated to use them during emergencies.
Las Vegas police officers will be ordered to patrol in defective vehicles that can’t reliably complete their shifts, have dangerous design defects like inoperable doors and steer-by-wire failure modes, and lock them into Tesla’s service network during equipment failures.
When the first critical incident occurs, lawsuits won’t cite “unforeseen circumstances.” They’ll cite McMahill’s statement:
“We haven’t done a cost comparison yet.”
That admission transforms every subsequent incident from accident to negligence.
What should happen:
- LVMPD should commission independent safety analysis before deployment
- Nevada AG should investigate whether this violates procurement regulations
- Officers’ union should file grievance about unsafe equipment and threat to public safety
- Taxpayers should demand the cost analysis McMahill admitted doesn’t exist
Welcome to the corporation of policing, where Silicon Valley billionaires offload failure, and sheriffs accept liability without reading the headlines.
