Your car will probably be fine after an EMP

William S. Forschten’s post-apocalyptic novel, One Second After, famously describes a post-apocalyptic world of clogged roadways and stranded motorists, as all the continent’s cars are instantly stopped by a single blast from a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP). All cars, that is, except one — the protagonist’s 1959 Edsel, a car so old it didn’t have any modern electronics that could be fried by the electromagnetic pulse from a nuke.

Forschten’s Edsel is the car that launched a million prepper Google searches for “EMP-proof vehicles.” And the internet has responded with a ton of articles and products dedicated to EMP-proofing your vehicle (see the “Snake oil” section, below). But we’ve done the research and talked to the experts, and the news is mixed:

  • It’s possible that many, or even most, cars will still more or less work after a HEMP. But there are many variables — most of them outside any prepper’s control — that factor into whether a specific car will work. And there’s no way to guarantee a good outcome for any vehicle short of wrapping the whole thing in a Faraday cage.
  • There is no magic year, make, or model that you should buy. Roughly speaking, pre-1970 or so is better, but that’s becoming impractical 50 years on.
  • An EMP-proof car that can survive outside a Faraday cage doesn’t meet the “sane prepping” criteria for a very long list of reasons we’ll get into in a moment. So unless you’ve got all your other preps squared away, and have a lot of time and money to dedicate to this obscure, complicated prep, the sane prepper case just cannot be made.
  • Because an EMP-proof vehicle is not a sane prep, you should forget about the road warrior fantasies and focus on all the other preps that will actually matter in the aftermath of a major EMP disaster.

For our guide on the risks of and surviving an EMP attack, we read every important paper and commission report on EMP, and interviewed one of the authors of the most widely cited studies on the effects of EMP.

Here’s what you need to know:

An EMP damages modern electronic devices by injecting an unexpected electrical current into their circuits and overloading them. The external wires that attach to most electronic devices (i.e., data cables and power cords) act as antennas that collect the pulse’s energy and funnel it straight into fragile circuits. The longer the wire to the device, the more EMP energy that wire directs into the interior of that device where it can do damage.

The more modern the circuits in a car or device, the more sensitive they are to smaller changes in current. So as our electronics get more advanced, shorter wires can collect enough current to overload them.

HEMP is not actually a thing preppers should worry about. Or, to be more precise, a HEMP attack on the continental US is a nuclear attack, so if it happens then it’ll be in the context of a full-scale nuclear war. In such a scenario, you’ve got far more immediate problems than a dead starter.

Solar EMPs are much more likely than any kind of man-made EMP, but a solar storm can’t generate the kinds of high-frequency EMP needed to knock out small electronics like those found in cars. So the more plausible solar EMP scenario is not a direct threat to your ride. (It is, however, an indirect threat via its impact on the country’s energy infrastructure, but more on that, below.)

All of society’s detailed knowledge about which cars will likely survive a nuclear-generated, high-altitude EMP (HEMP) and which won’t, is classified by various governments. But we do know enough to give some general guidelines:

  • The newer the car, the more vulnerable it is to HEMP.
  • Pre-1970’s cars are best, but are probably still vulnerable, depending on various factors.
  • Any car of any make/model/year needs its critical electrical parts to be protected by a metal Faraday cage for best results.

The fact that cars are made of metal does give them some limited shielding from EMP. But this spotty shielding just reduces the odds of damage by an unknown (and unknowable) degree that’s dependent on a ton of variables related to the blast and the vehicle.

Here’s a brief, incomplete list of the factors that will determine how your car responds to a HEMP:

  • The size and elevation of the nuclear blast
  • Geographic and seasonal variations in the earth’s magnetic field at both the location of the blast and the location of the vehicle
  • The location and physical orientation of the vehicle with respect to the blast
  • The amount and position of the metal parts of the car
  • The number, locations, and designs of the critical electronic systems inside the car
  • The length of the wires and cables attached to the vehicle’s electronics

All of the above factors and more work together to determine if a particular automobile in a particular place in the country survives an EMP of a particular size at a particular elevation.

What all of that “particular” talk in the previous sentence translates to in practical terms, is that in the wake of an EMP, my ’80s diesel farm tractor could have smoke coming out of its ignition, while your Tesla Model S parked a few states away could suffer a temporary, non-fatal glitch but remain drivable.

Why? Neither of us would be able to say with any confidence.

Even if you eliminate all the above variables in one stroke by enclosing your vehicle in a conductive Faraday cage, there’s still a high likelihood that you’re wasting your time with all this vehicular EMP-proofing. Because the main thing we know for certain about the “cars and EMP question” is this: finding a working vehicle will be among the least of your problems in a post-EMP scenario.

Actually getting around in the aftermath, and keeping your ride fueled, are much larger challenges.

Driving in the EMPocalypse

The opening highway scene from AMC’s The Walking Dead

When it comes to roadways and navigation your ability to get around on public roads will depend on the number and location of dead and crashed vehicles. Note that many, probably even most, of these crashes won’t happen because every vehicle involved suddenly glitched out or died from the blast, but because traffic lights all stopped working at once (from a larger grid issue). It’s also the case that just one car suddenly dying in highway traffic can cause a massive pile-up that stretches for miles. And with no emergency services available to come clean up the mess, that pile-up will stay there indefinitely.

All of the clogged roadways mean that your daily doomsday driver has to be fully off-road capable. The requirement for serious off-road capabilities narrows your options for a viable EMP-mobile.

But as experienced off-roaders know, just owning an “off-road” vehicle doesn’t mean you’re actually prepared do real off-roading. Successful off-roading takes miles of practice, and extra gear (like special jacks and winches). Even the best off-roaders sometimes get in a bind and have to radio friends to come tow them out — not necessarily an option post-EMP, though.

Then there’s the fact that at some point in your doomsday travels you’re going to run into a blocked bridge, overpass, or other chokepoint where no amount of off-road mojo will help you. So even with a beast of an EMP off-road truck, you may not get far from home.

Even if you can get around okay off-road, the trucks that carry fuel around the country cannot. So there won’t be any fuel available, because the nation’s entire fuel distribution infrastructure — from the pipelines to the trucks to the individual stations — will be a mess. You’ll either need to rely on stored fuel, or you’ll need a working electric vehicle and a working solar power source.

Buying an EMP-proof car

The Rezvani Tank is marketed as an EMP-proof vehicle

Apart from boutique vehicles like the one pictured above, there is no make or model of car that’s guaranteed to be safe from EMP, and there is no gadget on the market (short of a totally sealed, car-sized Faraday cage) that will reliably protect your car from EMP.

There is also no model year range of car (e.g. 1950 or earlier) you can get that’s guaranteed to be EMP-proof. The most experts can say is that newer cars are definitely more vulnerable than older cars. And cars made in the ’60s or earlier, before the widespread automotive use of solid-state electronics (see below) are the least vulnerable of all. But no car, no matter how old, is guaranteed to survive a direct hit from an EMP. Nor is any particular car guaranteed to die instantly from an EMP blast. (Again, see the list of variables, above.)

Small electronics that have only very short external cables attached to them could be fine, depending on the makeup of the gadget and the length of the cables. So some modern cars that don’t have very long cable runs could be ok with enough luck. (The length of these runs varies make/model/year, so there’s no way to know how long the wire runs are in a car short of taking the whole thing apart and measuring the wires with a ruler.)

As for older automobiles, even very old, ’50s-era cars have wire runs and electrical components that may be vulnerable to EMP if you’re close enough to the blast. Again, luck is a big factor.

And while we’re weighing different probabilities, it could turn out that in purchasing an old car as a prep, all you’re doing is trading a moderate amount of EMP risk for an enormous amount of the ordinary maintenance risk that goes with having an antique car whose parts are all out of production.

All of the above boils down to these options:

  • If you go the electric vehicle route, you’ll need to store both the entire vehicle and the solar charging equipment in a large Faraday cage.
  • If you plan on using an older vehicle with no solid state electronics (i.e. anything made before the early ’70s), then you’ll need to either store the entire vehicle in a Faraday cage, or you’ll need to identify, obtain, and protect backups of all critical electrical parts. You’ll also need a large stash of fuel, and plenty of mechanical know-how for replacing fried parts.
  • If you plan to use a modern vehicle with solid-state electronics, then storing backup parts in a small Faraday cage won’t be an option. You’ll need to store the entire car or truck in a large Faraday cage. And, of course, you’ll still need plenty of fuel.
  • If you don’t want to do any of the above, it’s actually not at all unreasonable to just gamble that either your car will make it through the blast, or you’ll have a friend or a neighbor whose car makes it through. This is a fairly reasonable bet, and in fact, is probably the best “sane prepper” option.

Why cars are vulnerable to EMP

Solid-state electronics — i.e., electronics based on semiconductors, like computer chips and transistors — are extremely vulnerable to nuclear EMP under the right conditions. These devices are low-voltage and can’t take sudden infusions of electrical energy. So the current spikes created when a high-frequency EMP hits the wires attached to a solid-state device are often enough to burn it out.

Capacitor damage from pulse testing. The capacitor (C9) is gone, and there are scorch marks (C30 shows an undamaged capacitor). Source: Metatech

All mass-market consumer vehicles in production for the past few decades have solid-state electronics in them in one form or another — the newer the car, the more critical those electronics are to its functioning. This 1972 Popular Electronics article outlines the many areas that solid-state electronics were being used in cars even then — critical areas like braking and fuel injection were already in the process of going solid state.

A list of automotive electronic systems. Source: Science Direct

Even very old cars without solid-state circuits could still see the electrical parts of their systems fried by an EMP if they’re close enough to the blast. Anything that has enough external wire attached to it could be vulnerable.

Preppers who keep very old cars around for EMP resilience purposes also keep backup alternators, generators, ignition coils, and other parts in a Faraday cage. That way, they’re prepared to replace those parts in the wake of a blast.

Beware EMP snake oil and fake news

If you’ve spent any time on this topic, you’ve run across some links telling you that the EMP Commission tested some cars in 2004, and they mostly came through it just fine. Or you read about a TV show that ran a car through an EMP generator, and it shut down but then cranked back up. All that stuff is fake news. Do not believe it.

The EMP Commission had to return the borrowed cars in working order, so they didn’t even try to test them to the point of frying any electronics. The tests they ran were just not representative of a real-world EMP strike.

And the TV show? That whole “test” was staged, and the producers admitted it. So that fake incident is not to be relied on no matter how many mainstream websites are citing it as real.

Preppers who’ve gone deeper down the “EMP and cars” rabbit hole will know about Russian and US high-altitude nuclear tests done in the ’60s, and how some cars at the time survived. The Russians did some later testing over Kazakhstan with nuclear detonation and EMP. The results of these tests are all still classified, and what has filtered out to the public are verbal, anecdotal reports. Experts differ greatly on the implications of these tests for modern cars — many think these tests show the impact on older cars should be minimal, but others strongly dispute that these anecdotes from the ’60s tell us anything useful.

If you want to make your preparedness plans based on 60-year-old anecdotes about classified military experiments, then be our guest. But sane prepping is about relying on up-to-date information to draw reasonable inferences and to plan for the worst while hoping for the best. So this rules out making plans based on old stories, unrealistic tests, and staged-for-TV stunts.

EMP tests on cars have been done, but the results aren’t public

Both the US military and automobile manufacturers are known to have run EMP tests on automobiles. But none of these tests are available to the public.

For the military tests, the information is classified in part because the tests are based on classified knowledge of the nuclear capabilities of us and our enemies, and of the kinds of pulses their weapons would produce. The fact that it’s also used to harden our own military equipment against EMP is another reason for the secrecy.

Auto manufacturer tests are done primarily for reasons of ensuring that modern cars’ many electronic components don’t interfere with each other. It’s not clear why the automakers would be testing for actual HEMP resilience, apart from perhaps a specific military request for info on certain models. So it’s unlikely that any but a very few vehicles are tested for anything behind ordinary electrical interference and crosstalk.

It’s also the case that different makes, models, and years of cars are configured differently on the inside. Different electronic parts from different makers are arranged in different ways. This under-the-hood variation is wide enough that it’s impossible to make blanket statements about one family of cars or another.

All of that said, we really don’t need access to highly classified information to know that any relatively modern car that’s caught in the E1 pulse of a nuke has the potential to get damaged. In a 2018 interview, I asked this question about classification and EMP effects on electronics to John Kappenmann, one of the principal researchers behind the in-depth, government-sponsored METATECH reports that are cited by everyone who looks at this topic. Here’s his response:

Silicon-based electronics do not fail gracefully. They’re very brittle. They spark over, and you’re in the process of buying new equipment to get it back up and running. That’s a huge problem, and you face this across electronic systems throughout the power grid enterprise — substations are no different than many of the power plants. They have a bit higher withstand capability, mainly because they’re switching high-voltage equipment at those locations. But the threat field is substantially larger than the inherent withstand of any of those devices.

So you really can’t engineer these systems to be resilient to 50K volts/meter. Rather, what you have to do is put them in a protected space that will not allow them to experience that 50k volts/meter threat. You keep it walled off, or Faraday cage isolated from the environment.

That’s a fairly simple concept, and it doesn’t take a lot of access to highly classified information to figure this out.

Kappenmann was talking about the embedded systems used in electrical substations, but this applies to automobiles. The embedded systems used in some industrial applications are similar to those used in vehicles — the chips and many other components are made in the same plants.

So if a programmable logic controller in an electrical substation is at risk from an E1 pulse, you can bet that your car’s fuel injection, braking, and other critical systems are all every bit as vulnerable. Again, it all depends on the length of the wire runs attached to those devices, their proximity to the blast, their level of shielding, and dozens of other factors.

Options for EMP proofing your car

A large Faraday cage from LEE International

If you still want to EMP-proof your car, you have one option that’s guaranteed to work: the Faraday cage.

If your car is regularly used, then wrapping it in a metal fabric is probably not an option. In this case, you’d want a metal garage where all the openings can be sealed tight, including the floor of the garage. This way, you can park your vehicle in a Faraday cage and seal it in, knowing that it’ll survive whatever hits it.

Automotive electronic systems. Source: EE Times

Here’s what is not a real option for EMP-proofing your car: certain gadgets that are advertised online as a one-stop, easy-to-install EMP shielding solution. To the extent that these gadgets work at all, they act as surge protectors that can protect some parts of a vehicle from the lightning-like E2 pulse of a nuke.

But the shorter, earlier E1 pulse is where the real threat to solid-state circuitry is. The E1 pulse can create currents in wires that don’t feed directly into the surge protection device (which is typically plugged into the battery). For instance, data cables could get a current injected into them, and those cables are not part of the power system that’s being surge protected. So excess charge could make its way into the electronic components via the data ports and disrupt it.

So no matter how many supposed military specifications these devices tout, or what credentials they claim to offer, smart preppers will stay away.

Sources and further reading:


  • 21 Comments

    • TraceContributor

      This is a great article about a topic that people spend way too much time fretting about. Thanks for demystifying it, and for really emphasizing the sane prepper angle. 

      Just to make sure I understand. A coronal mass ejection (CME) is the same thing as what you’re calling a solar EMP, right? 

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      • Jon StokesStaff Trace

        Yeah, sort of. A CME is a burst of energy that crashes into the earth’s magnetic field, flexing it and warping it and causing a solar EMP.

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    • PreppedIsra

      Hey, can you do me a favor, and give me your take on the EMP Shield (www.empshield.com). I had one given to me for a 2016 Ford F-350, the 12V system one. Their website says it’s beyond military grade and tested in Keystone Laboratories and suited for ALL the different types of EMP surges…special new technology. My wife thinks it’s legit. I’m skeptical because (1) how can we know whether it works until it’s too late, and (2) as mentioned here, after an EMP attack we’ll have so many other problems that a working vehicle will be less useful than a good mountain bike and a good pair of legs…especially once the roadways are impassable and/or your tank goes empty. Not to mention, if you’re the only guy with a working vehicle, there’ll be plenty of nut jobs out there ready to steal it or kill for it…and even a bunch who’d just destroy it because it isn’t theirs. 

      But seriously, how legit is this company and their technology?

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      • Robert LarsonContributor PreppedIsra

        Preppedisra – I looked into empshield.com before and had the same questions. In my opinion I think it will not protect your vehicle against an EMP. The thing with a company like this is that they can claim all they want, and if an EMP hits and takes out the grid and your vehicle is fried, you aren’t going to go complain and get a refund, because the whole country will be in a pretty bad scenario and we will be focusing mostly on just trying to survive. 

        An EMP is going to come at your vehicle, the electronics, and wiring from all directions and angles and isn’t selective to just conveniently route all energy safely through everything until it gets to the empshield where it will then safely cut off the power. It just doesn’t make logical sense.

        It saddens me that companies like this who make a flashy website and pay money for testing are able to sell products like this and give people a false sense of security. There’s really no way the average consumer is able to test these kinds of products. 

        Empshield has $25,000 in insurance protection for damaged electronics. I would rather just invest that $350 for the empshield unit into lowering my deductable for my auto insurance. If your car does get fried by lightening, file a claim and get a new car from a real insurance company that does this every day. And if an EMP hits and fries your car, agian, we will have bigger problems to deal with.

        You say you were given a empshield unit right? I’d use it if you have it. Don’t think it will hurt much besides a slight decrease in fuel economy of the extra weight (which is practically nothing). And giving your wife peace of mind is worth more than anything. And hey, if an EMP hits and all cars are fried except yours, come drive over to my house and let me know! I’ll be extremely happy for ya.

        Here’s another forum of people talking about empshield as well, and they are skeptical and don’t think it will work either. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/suggestions/emp-shield-scam/ 

        -Be Prepared-

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      • Israel Aloia Robert Larson

        Thanks for the reply, Robert. I’m more skeptical after reading other comments and checking out the websites you included suggesting empshield is a scam.  Quick question for anyone who understands electricity better than I do, which is super basic knowledge.  We have been living in an RV since last September.  We’ve been at 2 different places and at this campground we are currently since Novemeber 2020.  I called the empshield people when we first got set up in the RV because my mother-in-law had already sent us the empshield and we needed to get something to protect our RV from electrical events at campgrounds.  I tested the RV Park’s 50, 30, and 20 AMP outlets with a multimeter before plugging in.  All appeared fine.  Empshield told me we WOULD NOT need any other surge protector at the outlet or within our RV to protect it from a power surge.  All we would have to do is plug the 110V empshield into any 110V outlet in the RV.  They said we would need a separate empshield for the 12V system of the RV…though they are wired together through an inverter/converter so that various lights and plugs work (regardless of whether the RV is plugged in) and batteries can stay charged when you are plugged in to city power.  

        Can anyone validate these claims of the empshield providing electrical surge protection merely by being plugged into an outlet within the storage bay of our RV??  We have a “residential”-type breaker box AND “automobile”-type fuse panel with another handful of breakers.  We almost bought one of those plugs that go in ahead of the 50AMP power cord into the campground hook-up…or one that hard mounts into your RV somewhere (so it can’t be stolen).  But then the empshield showed up from grandma!  Can I trust it to do the same job and protect my stuff from sketchy campgrounds and/or other electrical events that would otherwise require surge protection for your RV??!!  HELP! (THIS IS A DECENT CAMPGROUND …BUT I WANT TO HIT THE ROAD LATER THIS YEAR AND DON’T WANT TO RISK MY HOME TO BAD ELECTRICITY AT SKETCHY HOOK-UPS.)

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      • Robert LarsonContributor Israel Aloia

        Just plugging it into any ol’ outlet does seem a bit too good to be true at first glance for me. I would think it would have to be plugged in at the beginning of the circuit to protect everything down stream, but I really do not know much about electrical systems though to give you an educated guess of if that would work or not.

        Can I ask you a bit about the RV life? How do you like it? How do you prepare the best you can when in such a small area?

        My wife and I have been thinking of going full time RVing but not having my large food storage and other preps would certainly be something I would struggle with. 

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      • Robert LarsonContributor PreppedIsra

        Saw a reddit post the other day from another prepper trying to use a EMP shield that he won for free in a contest. Many in the comments say it is a scam as well.

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    • Brian King

      Two questions:

      1. If your vehicle (European late 80:s or early 90’s) was parked and turned off, would an EMP damage it?

      2. If it was parked and turned off and damaged, what spare parts ought one to keep on hand to rectify the damage?

      Thank you for considering these queries. 

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      • Robert LarsonContributor Brian King

        Hey Brian, the article answers your questions let me highlight them for you:

        To your first question:

        • The newer the car, the more vulnerable it is to HEMP.
        • Pre-1970’s cars are best, but are probably still vulnerable, depending on various factors.
        • Any car of any make/model/year needs its critical electrical parts to be protected by a metal Faraday cage for best results.

        Here’s a brief, incomplete list of the factors that will determine how your car responds to a HEMP:

        • The size and elevation of the nuclear blast
        • Geographic and seasonal variations in the earth’s magnetic field at both the location of the blast and the location of the vehicle
        • The location and physical orientation of the vehicle with respect to the blast
        • The amount and position of the metal parts of the car
        • The number, locations, and designs of the critical electronic systems inside the car
        • The length of the wires and cables attached to the vehicle’s electronics

        So in summary, its almost impossible to say. There are so many factors to say if something will be safe or not.

        To answer your second question:

        You are going to have to be able to diagnose and test particular parts after your car is fried to figure out what the culprit is that was damaged. Could be the electronic fuel injector, engine control unit, or many other things. And unless you buy all these parts and place them in a faraday cage and swap them all out and know how to do everything, it just isn’t very likely a normal average joe will be able to fix their car and the sensitive electronics that can be damaged. At least I don’t feel comfortable in my car knowledge on how to fix computer units on a vehicle.

        If you really want to go down that rabbit  hole, something that might work is getting a paper repair manual like from Chiltons and learn how your car works. Maybe disconnect various fuses and unplug different things and see if the car will still start up and work. Only do this if you are very confident in your work though. Don’t take this lightly and disconnect an important part of your vehicle that will wreck it or make it unsafe to drive like disabling the ABS brake system. Again, don’t recommend this, but if you had a fun project car (not your daily driver) and had the time and knowledge, that might be a way to learn a bit more about what are the bare bones that your vehicle needs to operate.

        —————-

        And then to end, I just want to highlight a paragraph from the article. While an EMP proof vehicle would be fun and a good prep, make sure you have the basics down first.

        “An EMP-proof car that can survive outside a Faraday cage doesn’t meet the “sane prepping” criteria for a very long list of reasons we’ll get into in a moment. So unless you’ve got all your other preps squared away, and have a lot of time and money to dedicate to this obscure, complicated prep, the sane prepper case just cannot be made.”

        ————

        An EMP proof car isn’t something I’m going to be prepping for. I might one day get a bare bones dirt bike or go kart that doesn’t have any electronics, that can still get me around after SHTF, is cheap, and can be used during normal times. 

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    • jb

      Hi,

      I read your article (more than once!) and literally the next thing I read was interesting information at: 

      https://Disasterpreparer.com

      While I follow your logic about EMP likelihood, it seems to me that likelihood, however small has increased since you wrote this article.

      The principal behind the purported vehicular EMP-protective devices sold at that website is a Ph.D. scientist, literally a rocket scientist, current or former NASA employee. I have watched his YouTube videos and studied his website. I am NOT a rocket scientist or physicist, but I have a working knowledge of physics. His work and presentation are compelling.

      Putting aside the arguments about “sane” prepping, solely on the basis of the physics presented, what is you/your consultant’s opinion as to the merits of the EMP/CMP mitigation presented by Dr. Arthur Bradley?

      Thank you in advance for your help, and your thoughtful article.

      Kind regards!

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      • Josh CentersContributor jb

        Dr. Bradley is legit. I wrote about his EMP trash can design a while back.

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      • jb Josh Centers

        That is my impression also! Thanks so much for cofirmation. Also forwarding link of your article to my brothers. Kind regards, John

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      • jb Josh Centers

        Hi again Josh!

        I went to your page and noticed you are a HAM radio operator. Not sure how to email you or correct place to pose this question. I am working on my technical and general licenses and hope to take the exams the same day. Beyond local comms my goal is to be able to be in touch with family on the far side of the US from me in a SHTF scenario with repeaters down. Is that possible via SW with general license and right equipment, or am I dreaming? Have looked but haven’t found the answer to this specific question, although haven’t started studying for general license yet. If you have an article on this, please let me know. I promise I’m not gonna bug you again! ATB! John

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      • Josh CentersContributor jb

        Hi John, I answered a similar question recently in the forums. Yes, HF can easily reach across the United States, depending on your radio, antenna, and solar activity, but your loved one(s) will also need a license and the right equipment. I’d look at a 100-watt HF radio like the Icom IC-7300. If you can figure out Winlink, you can send email through HF so they don’t need special equipment if they’re online. Or you could get a satphone.

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    • johnny

      hello, i’ve follow some solutions, like dr. Bradley suggest but every solutions fails to modern cars, modern cars have so many gaps and electronics, for example almost any car from 15 years ago have a key module fo security reasons, the key have a code (chip) that if the key module of the car do not recognise i can’t start up my car, so finally i gave up to use my car as bug out vehicle, i’ve used my motorcycle in other emergency situations like earthquake in 2017 in mexico city and somentimes is the only vehicle that can move around streets with fallen buildings, and i can push it over a car, since its a lightweight just 140kg, hope my recomendation works for someone else and just have some peace of mind, by the way the motorcycle has to be carburated and use cdi ignition , just keep 2 or 3 cdi units and ignition coils in a faraday cage, my 150cc motorcycle give a good fuel mileage in my case around 70mpg and i’ve done long trips on it, maybe its not the best option but its better than been stranded…. see ya!

      if someone need a recomendation of some motorcycle, feel free to text me 🙂

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      • Sir Henry johnny

        After reading this article, it seems to me that while my car may possibly be alright after an EMP, I don’t want to rely entirely on that maybe. Your suggestion of the simple and lightweight motorcycle is a good one.

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    • Chris

      Excellent article, however one thing that most people forget about. And have it in the kitchen draw , good old fashioned cooking foil. 
      As with the emergency sleeping bag or blanket of which is made of foil to reflect your body heat to protect you from hypothermia (freezing to death)

      This stuff would work in reflecting the EMP plus.

       You watch if you put a small foil into your Mircowave over 

      it sparks (Y) because the EMP waves generated by the electron can not penetrate the foil. 
      So you basically wrap up the electronic stuff in your car and any wires leading from or to it . 

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      • Gideon ParkerStaff Chris

        Glad you enjoyed the article Chris. I have made some smaller faraday cages from aluminum foil before, but that wouldn’t it be a bit hard to locate all the electronics in your car and wrap them properly with how much of a computer cars are today? 

        There’s wires going to all corners of the car and it’s pretty hard to locate them all and wrap them properly because they are inside of panels, under carpet, or even in the roof lining. 

        Definitely a good solution for some smaller objects like a laptop or radio though.

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    • bison 2.0

      Would a emp fry a 1980’s snowmobile ignition coil and spark plug? Does it matter if the electrical system on the machine is grounded to the frame?

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      • Paulino Martin bison 2.0

        I am not an expert by any means but I reckon that the ignition coil and spark plug would be safe. EMP’s are mostly detrimental to the small transistors and other small sensitive electronics. 

        Now I do question if having the electrical system grounded to the frame is the best thing though. You would think that it being grounded would be good to dissipate the current but you also have to consider that if an EMP hits, that entire frame will take that charge like a giant antenna and funnel that directly into the electrical system.

        Something to think about…

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    • Ray

      So Jon I had a thought. Like the cautionary at the gas station telling you to discharge the static from yourself before pumping gas to in order to avoid a spark and ignition. Static charge is around us 24/7 like mini lightning. Like mini emps. I remember in the 60s and 70s commercial vehicles like buses had some sort of dangly on the back of their rigs touching the ground in order to discharge any Sparks that may be admitted during fill up to avoid explosion. So here’s my aha moment, an extremely cheap if it would work. Could you use the roof rack or any other attachment on your rooftop of your car truck etc as a collection point for the EMP and route that collector down to ground literally the asphalt in order to discharge that EMP? I know some people that had access to lead paint would paint their rooftops of their trucks buses RVs etc when crossing border crossings because of the high amplitude x-ray machines they use at border crossings to avoid getting fried. Let me know your thoughts on this and the possibility of it working because you could use rolls of tin foil or some alloy cheaply and avoid these costly scams and snake oil salesman selling you thousands of dollars of equipment that may or may not work. And thank you for your input and enlightenment

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    • Carl Eberling

      Any thoughts on people separately inventorying electronic parts for their vehicles inside a safe faraday storage facility?  So they would get dirty replacing parts after the fact.  Know of any easy way to get the target inventory for different models, different years of vehicles?

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