If an EMP burst, could we make our trucks run?

I figure an EMP would fry the electronics in our trucks pretty thouroughly. Could we still make them run, and if so... how?

Just a random apocalypse question!

 

My motorcycle will still run perfectly

 

just wrap the truck in aluminum foil

 

Isn't an EMP the same as if you were to statically discharge on a circuit board? The excess in voltage would fry everything?

An EMP would overwhelm the electronics in the car and fry everything even if your battery was disconnected.

Best way, other than lining everything with an electric barrier material, would to park your truck deep in a concrete culvert or many stories underground in a parking garage.

 

my four-wheeler would start, i dont think i could get my truck running...

 

Don't forget to wear your foil helmet

 

Buy one of those small shitty aluminum sheds from wally world. Cover the entire inside in copper mesh, and run a ground wire to a stake outside.

Its a makeshift Faraday box. My old college prof had put copper mesh on the walls in his classroom to kill cell-phone signals. That shit worked. It was a dead zone.

 

oh that would suck.......

 

Will an EMP fry the electronics in my car? EMPs come in different total energies based on the source (bomb, microwave generator, etc) that created it. And like any electromagnetic effect, it obeys the inverse square law, where energy, and hence damage potential drop off at the square of the distance between you & the source. So you need to answer both those questions to know how you'll be affected.

If your car is 12,000 miles away from the biggest nuke ever built it will be unaffected. 12 miles away it might well be incinerated, electronics and all. Somewhere in the middle is a distance where some parts will be EMP-ed out but the car will be otherwise undamaged.

If your question is really "Are a modern car's electronics susceptible to strong enough EMP?", the answer is yes, definitely.

 

Like something from the book "lights out"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_nuclear_explosion

"High altitude nuclear explosion"

 

EMP induces current in wiring and may or may not "fry" your electronics. The only engine that is 100% EMP proof is an old-school diesel with mechanical pump and injectors, zero electrical dependency once it is running.
There may be some old-school gas turbines that have zero electrical dependencies as well.

 

we are driving toyotas therefore an EMP will just cause our pedal accelerators to get stuck at WOT... and some Priuses will lose their ability to brake.

 

sig worthy..!!

 

So then, what would we have to do to our trucks to get them running again? I mean, convert to carburation, hotwire a bunch of components, what? In other words, I want my Taco running when the post-apocalyptic zombie hordes start roaming the earth!

 

Only the red/blue truck in my sig pic below would continue to function...........

 

Was just gonna say something about the older trucks. They can take such a fucking beating and an EMP blast wouldn't phase it.

 

This has actually been tested by the government already and it's been shown that most electronic parts will survive. It's kinda like how the car is the best place to be during a lightning storm.

Although things that would most likely go would be ECU, coil, battery, starter. Just throw those things in a big micrawave overn and you're all good. Better yet, build your garage into a giant faraday cage and you won't have to worry about it at all!!