A police department in California has purchased a flashy new piece of equipment to impress local children: a $150,000 Tesla Cybertruck.

In a Facebook video featuring lightning graphics, the Irvine police department said it believed the vehicle to be “the first police cybertruck in the nation”. It’s unlikely to be in any high-speed chases: police say it will mostly be used by officers for school programs, though it is able to respond to emergencies.

“I’m very proud to say that we’re the first police department in the country to have this in its fleet,” the police chief, Michael Kent, told the Orange County Register.

The department’s 40-year-old Drug Abuse Resistance Education (Dare) program has used a range of flashy cars over the years, including PT Cruisers and small monster trucks, Kyle Oldoerp, a police spokesperson, said: “The goal has always been to have a unique vehicle that doesn’t look like a police car, that is approachable by kids and students to encourage interaction between officers and our schools and our community.”

Since Elon Musk announced the Cybertruck in 2019 – at an event that saw Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, attempt to show off its durability and shatter a window in the process – the unusual-looking electric vehicle has been a lightning rod for controversy. As of last week, it has been subject to five recalls in roughly a year since its release. Among the concerns have been an accelerator pedal at risk of getting stuck and trouble with loose trim and windshield wipers.

Oldoerp said the department was not concerned about the recalls, saying they were commonplace for its fleet and there was a Tesla repair facility nearby.

The police department paid $150,000 for the vehicle. A Ford Interceptor, the typical model of its patrol cars, costs $116,000. The department says the patrol cars last for just three to four years, whereas it expects the Cybertruck to last a decade. It also expects to save $6,000 in gas on the EV over five years.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, which sends police to classrooms to urge children to stay off drugs, has a controversial history of its own. Instituted in 1983 as a collaboration between Los Angeles police and public schools, it soon spread across the US. In the late 90s and early 2000s, studies found that it had no significant effect and could even backfire.

The program was overhauled in 2009 and remains in use in some parts of the country. Irvine is one of two cities in California that still have the program, which has expanded its focus from drugs to include bullying, healthy eating and other lifestyle issues, Oldoerp said.