"Enquiries will continue overnight to locate the offender," she said. "Unless there are significant developments, no further updates are expected until after 7am tomorrow morning."
Police did not answer queries from the Herald about whether there were any police weapons in the stolen car, or whether the car thief had been in the car at the time it was stolen.
The search is believed to have been hampered by the fact that the offender had access to police radio in the car and could potentially listen in to police communications.