It’s one thing to be accused of a crime you didn’t commit. It’s quite another to be accused of something that’s simply impossible, like having an excessively loud muffler on your EV. That’s exactly what happened to one Dodge Charger EV owner, reports The Drive.
The owner, Mike, was driving with a group in Stillwater, Minnesota. As he described it to The Drive, he was pretty far back in the group when the lead car took off, fast and loud, from a traffic light. He got stuck at the red light, at which point a state trooper turned around and pulled up behind him. When the light turned green, he got pulled over. As he told The Drive:
“The trooper stepped up and immediately told me my car’s exhaust was way too loud and was disturbing the peace,” Mike continued. “I tried telling him it’s an EV and doesn’t have an exhaust or an engine, and he stated he’s not gonna argue with me.”
He was cited for a loud muffler, a missing front license plate, and a public nuisance to annoy, injure, or endanger safety. This sounds like pretty normal Charger behavior, except that the electric Charger Daytona doesn’t have a muffler. An Instagram video shows Mike trying to explain this to the trooper, but he simply wasn’t having it.
This is, of course, impossible
We can accept the ticket for the missing front license plate. AÂ brief view of the front of Mike’s car shows he doesn’t have one, and even if it’s ugly, it’s legally required. We have no video of the traffic light where Mike says that one car peeled out, he got caught at the light, and then pulled over. It seems unlikely that Mike, himself, was engaging in shenanigans at the light, since he knew a state trooper was there. But how can a car get cited for a loud muffler or exhaust when it doesn’t even have a muffler, exhaust, or even an internal combustion engine?
It’s possible that Dodge’s Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust could be to blame. This somewhat simulates the sound of the dearly departed, but returning, Hemi V8, using a speaker system. At a maximum of 126 decibels, it can be as loud as the Hellcat’s exhaust. However, even some stock exhausts have been cited for being too loud, though you’d expect that a vehicle off the showroom floor would be legal.
If you want to get technical, the Charger EV could violate noise statutes as an electronic device, like a loud stereo system, rather than an internal combustion engine’s exhaust system. However, such noise would not fall under the Minnesota statute 169.69 on Mike’s ticket, which specifically addresses a vehicle’s muffler and exhaust. I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me there’s no legal way an EV can violate this.
