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The Dodge Charger EV does not have an exhaust; it is an electric car. It may sometimes make noises like it does, but it doesn’t, and that can make it awkward when a police officer pulls you over for allegedly creating a public nuisance with a “super loud” muffler—just as one state trooper did to a Charger EV owner named Mike earlier this summer in Minnesota.
We got in touch with Mike, who posted part of the incident on Instagram. He told us that he was driving through Stillwater, a city that has a strict noise ordinance, with a group of car enthusiasts. He stopped at an intersection, “about eight cars deep,” and when the light turned green, he said the lead car “peeled away loud as hell.”
“I was left at the stoplight with a red light,” Mike told The Drive. “I looked to my left, and there was a state trooper across the street from me. He passed me and whipped a U-turn. Came up behind me as the light turned green and followed me into a gas station and lit me up. Initiated a traffic stop.”
“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.”
After this, Mike told us that the trooper walked away and returned “fishing for other violations.” In a dashcam video Mike provided to The Drive, the officer asks him to roll up his window to confirm that it isn’t tinted, and points out that the Charger is lacking a front plate, which is required in Minnesota. Many other enthusiasts can be seen walking past the car, inquiring about what’s going on.
Eventually, the cop serves Mike a ticket, seen by The Drive, that lists three offenses: “loud muffler/loud exhaust,” “front and rear license plates required,” and “public nuisance—annoy/injure/endanger safety.” As he’s verbally listing these in the video, he says that Mike’s “been warned for [his] muffler in the past,” to which Mike tells him that the prior instance involved a gas car, not the Charger. “I’m not going to argue with you,” the officer responds.
As for the public nuisance charge, the officer tells Mike he was “super loud back there,” and there are a few details to unpack here. First, while we don’t have video of what actually happened at the intersection, Mike says that the ruckus was caused by another car pulling away while he was stopped. The Charger EV can “rev” quite loudly, but it has to be put in Park to do that. It can also produce a fake engine noise while moving, but it must be in Sport mode for that. Mike told us he had his car set to the Auto drive mode at the time because he was low on battery, and that setting keeps the synthesized sounds to a minimum.
Almost three months since the stop, Mike told us that he hasn’t yet paid the fine nor fought it because “the case number is not in [the court’s] system,” even though the citation itself requires a court appearance. “I have called the courthouse every week for the last 10 weeks trying to schedule the court date/appearance, and still nothing,” Mike said.
Dodge
No matter the resolution, this is one of those situations that weirdly encapsulates the modern environment of driving cars that happen to be fast or loud. Many municipalities are cracking down on volume, which is justified to some extent, but then arguably goes too far when stock vehicles are being cited as nuisances. Then, you have EVs like the Charger that generate fake noises purely to appeal to traditional enthusiasts. Such a vehicle can theoretically disturb the peace in the same way a booming sound system does. Technically speaking, though, could you cite it for a loud exhaust? It doesn’t have one! And that’s setting aside that, based on Mike’s account, the disturbance in question wasn’t even caused by his car.
In the end, we’re left scratching our heads, much in the same way Mike probably was after this happened. Perhaps the officer just wanted to nail someone in that group; perhaps the EV that vaguely looked like a gas-burning muscle car often associated with folks who have little regard for the public made for a suitable target. In any case, it surely won’t be the last time an EV driver is charged for something their car cannot do or doesn’t have.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
