In general though, yes, if something took out the car’s ECU it would make the car useless until replaced. Older cars without ECU (mechanical fuel injection, like older vettes for example, or carborated, like my old RX-7) could deliver fuel. Anything with a mechanical distributor would be able to deliver spark without the use of a computer. However, little will stop the spark coils and injector solenoid coils in a car from acting as an antenna to an EMP shock and burning them out, making just about any car pointless.

Best bet for any car is to hope that all that metal on the outside makes for a good shield. Unless you go steam powered. Then you’re pretty much good (except of course for all the terrible risks of steam power anyway)

Now as far as what is best when Z-day comes? Diesel might be most rugged, since it’s not as sensitive to water getting in. Plus large, high torque, low RPM engines are readily available when you need to start assembling your DIY “dead reckoning.’ Steam could be cool, as Ash showed us in AoD, but it takes a long time to start and seems hard to conceal when needed.

Yes, work is slow today.

-Joseph

Naaah. They’ll all run fine. You just need to replace the solinoid.

- Jack

I honestly did not know of you last year when I was at SDCC, wish I had. I will be there again this year. I and my friends may cosplay as the characters from an online comic called Looking For Group. Uber geeky perhaps but we only Cosplay at Comic Con.

As to myths to bust I have a possibly touchy one:

There are supposedly various plans floating around the internet for how to build an EMP device from off the shelf components. I have read something (trying to track it down) that said a government commission obtained copies of a number of these plans and attempted to build the devices and failed.

The myth is that terrorists (or bored rich kids) could build the devices quickly and cheaply and take out entire city blocks (if not whole cities) worth of unshielded electronics.

A secondary myth that I have heard over the years is that older model cars particularly diesel types will be the only ones drive-able after a substantial EMP blast, either from a nuke or an EMP device/warhead. This is supposed to be because of the various computer systems within newer cars that control vital mechanical systems like fuel injection, brakes, stability control and most important interior environmental system! What good is a drive-able car if you can’t use the AC or roll down the windows!

I know Popular Mechanics or Popular Science ran an article about such devices a number of years ago trying to tell of the potential dangers of such devices in the wrong hands.

Myth Busters has touched on EMPs one or two times (007 Watches and bullets for one) but I wonder of the guys would be interested in trying this one. They would have to shield their cameras.

Also, will there be another science in science-fiction forum this year with you in attendance?

-Joseph