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Detroit's new fleet of donated police cars have safety issues [w/video]

In a show of generosity in mid-August, Detroit's business leaders donated $8 million to the Police Department and Fire Department in order to buy 100 new police vehicles and 23 EMS ambulances. But now officers have discovered - and complained - that the police vehicles have glaring safety issues, Deadline Detroit reports. It is not made clear what models of the fleet vehicles - which include police versions of the Ford Taurus, the Chevrolet Caprice and the Dodge Charger - are affected by the safety issues.
Officers reportedly have complained that the Plexiglass partition separating front-seat officers and back-seat prisoners is easily breached, and that the front passenger seat is installed too close to the dashboard. Prisoners who manage to writhe out of their handcuffs can bend the Plexiglass and reach into the cockpit, and sitting too close to the dashboard can render airbags more dangerous and make officers more vulnerable to injury in a crash.
Mark Diaz, president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, received the complaints and reportedly said the vehicles would get safety updates addressing the issues. But Deadline Detroit reports that it checked some of the offending police cars and, as of the last few days, they hadn't been updated.

Dodge pumps power to the people with $10 discount per horsepower

Dodge announced an incentive program named Power Dollars, which represents the next step in its mission to bring horsepower to the people. Starting on August 1, the automaker is luring enthusiasts into its showrooms by offering a $10 per horsepower discount on select models. The Power Dollars program applies to the 2019 Challenger (pictured), the 2019 Charger and the 2019 Durango. It's as simple as it sounds: if you buy a 500-horsepower car, you benefit from a $5,000 discount. The more horsepower you choose to put in your garage, the more money you save when you sign the dotted line. The 797-horsepower Challenger Hellcat Redeye comes with a $7,970 discount. At the other end of the spectrum, the Charger SXT powered by a 3.6-liter V6 rated at 292 horsepower is eligible for a $2,920 rebate.  The Grand Caravan has 283 horsepower, so it's not far from the Charger SXT, but it's not included in the program. The Journey with the same 3.6-liter V6 engine isn't in it, either. Dodge launched the Power Dollars program to boost sales, and likely to clear the remaining 2019 models out of its inventory before the 2020s arrive. But the company has another reason to make its muscle cars cheaper, one we don't think we've heard from an automaker yet. "Since bringing the Charger and the Challenger back to the market, Dodge has put 485 million horsepower into the hands of our loyal enthusiasts. The goal is to grow to a half-billion horsepower before the end of the year," explained Tim Kuniskis, the global head of Alfa Romeo, and FCA's head of passenger cars in North America, in a statement. It's 15 million horsepower short of the milestone. It needs to sell about 18,820 examples of the Hellcat Redeye to reach its goal, or approximately 51,370 units of the Charger SXT.   

Zombie cars: Discontinued vehicles that aren't dead yet

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.