US State Department has budget line for 'Armored Teslas' worth $400M
electrek.coNot a budget line. This is a procurement forecast. The department is listing all the things they might be interested in so that a small business/vendor has an opportunity to try to sell the government something. AKA this is the government's way of doing window shopping.
If you look up the attributed code DS/C/DEAV, DS stands for "Bureau of Diplomatic Security" and DEAV stands for "Defensive Equipment and Armored Vehicles Division". So these are armored cars for diplomats security details.
The same person put in the following orders:
- Armored Tesla (Production Units)
- ARMORED SEDAN
- ARMORED BMW X5/X7
- ARMORED EV (NOT SEDAN)
- R&D
The NAICS codes are wrong, but the numbers were clearly pulled out of thin air. Luckily, the Acquisition stage is only "PLANNING".
All this information is publicly available https://www.state.gov/procurement-forecast
That's a relief. I hope big ticket tickets have to go through an RFP/RFQ competitive bidding process. Furthermore, I would also hope that realistic projected fleet TCO based on data from other owners is one of the big factors in the decision-making process when it comes time to choose a vendor and negotiate pricing.
This contract was signed in December, during the Biden administration.