Would-Be Car Theft Foiled By Not Knowing How to Drive an Electric Car

They say that everything is bigger in Texas. Apparently that idiom includes excuses. Police in Austin, Texas arrested a man last Saturday not because he allegedly didn't know how to drive a manual car, but because he couldn't figure out how to drive an electric one.

The owner of a 2017 Chevy Bolt was minding his own business at a stop sign when a man approached his car at the driver's window, local reports said. The driver of the car rolled down the window and began to put it back up after being told to "get out of the car." The attacker smashed the window and climbed in to gain access to the vehicle. After a brief struggle, the driver got out of the vehicle because he "did not want to die over a car."

Fortunately for the owner (and unfortunately for the would-be carjacker), the criminal was unable to figure out how to drive the EV. It's unclear whether the man was unable to figure out how to make the car go, or if he was unable to figure out how to use the one-pedal driving available in the Bolt, but the gist is that he couldn't get away.

That's when a machete-wielding good samaritan sprung into action. A nearby man noticed the action going on and came to the driver's aide, following the alleged criminal until the police arrived to arrest him, reports say. The driver, who was empathetic to the arrested man, admitted that it did take some getting used to in order to learn how to properly drive the bolt.