So, here we have a new revelation from the military. They say threats to military bases come from electric vehicles. Why is that? Well, it’s really simple: EVs are heavier, accelerate quicker, and force a redesign of defenses. 

Here’s what happens when you’re at a military base or any secure facility: you have to prevent an attack using a vehicle. If someone is driving a vehicle and they can build up a lot of speed and smash through your gate, you have to defend against that. First of all, you have to have strong gates. One way they do it is by using physics to determine the potential speed of acceleration a vehicle could reach. 

A vehicle won’t be able to accelerate to 60 miles an hour unless they have a certain amount of running room, maybe a hundred feet or 200 feet. So, they make vehicles go through an S-curve approach before they get to the gate. That way, they know the vehicles won’t be going that fast.

They also consider the weight of a vehicle and how much force it can exert on a bollard, fence, or post. All these calculations are made on these military bases. Often, electric vehicles have batteries that weigh three or four thousand pounds in addition to the vehicle’s weight. Moreover, they can accelerate instantly, instead of taking eight seconds to go from zero to sixty, they can do it in 2.5 seconds. Therefore, they require a shorter distance to reach that speed.

As a result, they may have to redesign many of these military bases, which can cost millions of dollars because electric vehicles are seen as a potential threat.