It’s a scene familiar to many car enthusiasts: a cop flips a U-turn, follows you into the nearest parking lot, and approaches the window to discuss the volume of your vehicle. For a Minnesota man named Mike, however, this routine traffic stop took a truly bizarre turn. After pulling over his new Dodge Charger EV, the officer wrote what might be the world’s most ironic loud exhaust ticket —one for a car that has no exhaust at all.

The incident took place this summer in Stillwater, Minnesota, a town with a reputation for a strict noise ordinance. Mike was with a group of car enthusiasts, waiting at a stoplight about eight cars deep. When the light turned green, the lead car in the group took off with a roar, but Mike and his silent Charger EV were left behind at the red light. A state trooper across the street saw the commotion, made a U-turn, and promptly followed Mike into a gas station to initiate a stop.

According to Mike, the trooper’s first words were that his car’s exhaust was “way too loud” and a public nuisance. Mike attempted to explain the fundamental physics of the situation — that his car was electric and possessed neither an engine nor an exhaust system to make such a noise. The officer, however, was reportedly not interested in a technical debate and stated he was not going to argue. The absurdity of the loud exhaust ticket was compounded by the fact that the actual noisy car had long since disappeared down the road.

While it is true that the Charger can produce loud, artificial exhaust noise under certain circumstances, Mike insists his car was not in a mode where the noise system could be engaged.

While the citation will hopefully be dismissed in court, the story serves as a humorous sign of the times. The new Charger EV is designed to look every bit as aggressive as its gas-powered predecessors, and in this case, its muscular styling appears to have written a check its silent electric motors couldn’t cash. It’s a strange new world for both drivers and law enforcement, a world where sometimes, a car can be so quiet, it gets a loud exhaust ticket.