A good idea is one, making it work is two. With the Carbon Motors E7 the latter was the problem and so the best police car ever was born dead.
A new idea almost always starts with responding to a need. That sounds logical, but it is the basis for something that works. The execution must also be good and you must remain realistic. In theory, Carbon Motors Corporation had all the ingredients for a good idea. Yet their first project, the E7 police car, remained in the pre-production stage forever. A great idea that flopped anyway. Why?
Best-police-car
For that we have to travel to North America and start with a police car that did work. Many police stations in the US invariably used the Ford Crown Victoria. A large sedan with ditto engine that is robust and reliable. The last generation didn't want to die and the car continued to be ordered throughout the country, although that was not necessary given the mileage these cars could handle.
Is it all roses and moonshine in a Crown Vic then? New. Even though the engines are nice and strong and reliable, it is a very old-fashioned whole. Nice and functional and 'what's not on it can't be broken', but sometimes you want something new. The police often found a solution in another car, the first generation Dodge Charger since this became a four-door sedan. Just a bit more modern and therefore also a bit more refined. In addition, the Charger is slightly more 'muscle'. and so you better be on the tail in Dodge's alternative.
Trouble
So two good solutions for the PD's in the US. Still, there were two problems that both the Crown Victoria and the Charger couldn't solve. The first is environment. The Crown Victoria often had the Windsor 5.8 V8, not the kind of engine with energy label A on it. The Charger had a slightly smaller engine, wasn't much better.
Another ‘problem’ is the fact that both the Crown Victoria and the Charger start as “civilian” cars. In other words: just like in the Netherlands, regular cars that you and I can buy are purchased and then thoroughly modified. In the US, that means a bull bar up front, a wide variety of computers inside, the rear seats become a mini-prison and there's going to be an LED bar on the roof. As said, it works, but as we know, if you purposefully design something from scratch, it gets better at achieving that goal. Just look at modern 'dedicated EV's'.
“Super cop car”
That's where Carbon Motors comes in. This brand was founded in 2003 by ex-Ford executive William Santana Li and ex-police officer Stacy Dean Stephens. Their original plan is to address those two problems. A kind of state-of-the-art super cop car that is designed from the first pencil mark as a police car and becomes unavailable to civilians. According to Stephens, it's something he's always been missing: Many jobs get completely customized vehicles to improve their work, so why not the police?
It wasn't until 2008 that Carbon Motors' first prototype saw the light of day, and by 2012, a version was just about ready to be ordered by police stations. The Carbon Motors E7. A radically different thing than what we were used to at the time. However, it seemed to work. If you know that everything you put on it will also be used by the police, you can integrate it into the basic design. Saves on modifying again.
Carbon Motors E7
You can see that in everything. The large bumpers at the front are part of the frame of the car, so an unobtrusive piece of design acts as a bullbar. Fun fact: Lotus technology was used to make these beams strong. The flashing lights are also integrated into the roof, so there is no need to install a large wind catching LED bar.
Technically it was also good. All the police supercomputers are already in the dashboard in a giant Tesla-esque vertical screen. 2008! The rear doors are suicide doors and open at a maximum angle of 90 degrees, so that resisting detainees can more easily be forced into the back of the car. It sounds like it has been well thought out.
BMW
Then there is the environmental issue. It was actually quite simple: the power units in existing police cars are so old-fashioned that Carbon Motors could just borrow from someone who builds relatively clean engines. The power source for the Carbon Motors E7 was a 3.0 straight-six diesel that almost everyone believes was borrowed from BMW (Carbon Motors never confirmed this, but there were ties to BMW and they made a 3.0 diesel at the time). This was 300 hp and 570 Nm strong in the E7, was attached to a six-speed automatic transmission and sprinted from 0 to 96 km/h in 6.5 seconds. An efficient yet powerful engine, which was a nice addition with that environment in mind. The E7 managed to get 30 miles per gallon, which is about 1 to 12.7. And then there is the circularity: 95 percent of the parts of the Carbon Motors E7 could be recycled.
Hole in the market
The marketing was also bad. Everyone was talking about the E7 and how cool it is that the police are finally getting a complete vehicle of their own. The car also got a role in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, a Need for Speed title where you can play as a police officer and get the E7 at your disposal. It sounds like a gap has actually been found in the market.
Carbon Motors E7: the end
However, it was not possible to actually sell the cars to the police. The reason, as is often the case, is money. The company had to receive about 300 million in loans to build the cars at all. Because of the government interest, the government in the US was asked for that loan, but they never got it. Lack of money caused the company Carbon Motors to close their factory in 2013 and file for bankruptcy a week later.
Police Interceptor
The idea of a fully customized police car has not returned since. The Charger remains a good choice for many police stations and the Crown Victoria bravely held out through 2011: after all, they are the well-known choices and you stick to that. Incidentally, a replacement came from Ford: the Police Interceptor, which is based on the much more modern Taurus. That remains the police car for the US, together with the Police Interceptor Utility, which is based on the then brand-new Explorer. Last year, the last Crown Victoria's were withdrawn from service nine years after its production ended.
The Carbon Motors E7 was a financial flop, but perhaps the need was just not big enough . Because even if a super-police car solves all your problems, it's not that they were so gigantic. The E7 was stillborn, but the idea was born out of a noble pursuit.
