"Welcome to the future of policing," declared Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill.
The Cybertrucks are part of department's goal of creating the most technologically advanced department in the country, the sheriff said. McMahill said the Cybertrucks will be rolled out within the next two weeks to each area command.
One of Metro's largest changes from the base Cybertruck model is increasing the capacity of its battery, which McMahill said would be drained faster due to the added lights and computers needed to make it a tactical vehicle.
While the Cybertrucks are the first electric vehicle Metro is using, McMahill tempered any expectation that similar cars will be added to its fleet in the immediate future. It's something that the department will have to continue to evaluate, he said.
"We work 10-hour shifts at minimum, and a lot of places that have deployed electric vehicles, they're only getting six or seven hours of use out of them," McMahill said. "As battery life increases and the effectiveness of these vehicles expand in the range ... we'll probably see a lot of that as we continue to go forward."
The sheriff said the department had not yet done a comparison on how upkeep costs for the Cybertruck differs from a typical Metro vehicle. With the Tesla trucks soon to be deployed, he said that the department will "continue to look at" what that looks like.
McMahill said the vehicles came at no cost to taxpayers courtesy of a donation valued at $8 million to $9 million from Felicia and Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The couple contributed 10 trucks and covered all vehicle upgrades.
Nevada-based INK Architectural & Expo Signage also provided complimentary vehicle wrapping, McMahill added.
The sheriff said the department will soon have an update on its drone program, noting that its real-time crime center at headquarters is being replaced with a drone operations center.
Last month, Metro announced the second phase of the drone program: the creation of 13 skyports scattered across the valley for remote deployment. Pilots will be able to respond to requests with a drone overhead "almost in seconds," Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren then said.
"I anticipate that will be done within the next month, so that's the tying of all technologies together," McMahill said of the operations center. "I got to tell you, it's very exciting as we move that forward."
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