an EMP that would be powerful enough to take out a vehicle would be massive in size. There is no working "portable" EMP. Electronics is my passion.
That being said. For an emp to shut down the vehicles computer it would have to be a powerful pulse, in DC, that would confuse the car's computer long enough to think that there was a massive short somewhere. This would trigger the computer to shutdown, but the computer system in a car isn't like a home computer. After a massive ground fault it will turn itsself back on again with no problems. They have no boot cycle and are well protected enough for an electric shock to do no damage to them. You can drive your car down the road, leave it in gear, and shut the key off. The engine will stop running, but turn the key back to the normal run position and it is instantly running again.
Think of this like you would think of a powerline falling on the car. it is pushing massive amounts of power through the metal but nothing from it can hurt the cars electrical. It is too well grounded within itsself (not to the earth), and DC power is way different than AC in terms of power disruption.
For an electrical blast to stop a vehicle it would have to make direct contact with the engine block (which is a vehicles main ground) and put out enough juice to fry ignition components (i.e. plug wires, powerpack, coil, etc.) but that would take a major amount of power, and would still be virtually inneffective against any vehicles electrical design.
edit: I know they show this happening in movies and there is plenty of talk about it happening, but it is simply something that does not exist right now. Maybe in a few years the technology would come that could make such a device, and there is a working EMP that the Navy tested, but this was mounted to the front of a carrier ship and was a large as a small house. The area of effect from this monster EMP was only like 50yards, and in that yard radius, there was a measured response from testing equipment, but nothing that could stop the electronic systems from functioning.
That being said. For an emp to shut down the vehicles computer it would have to be a powerful pulse, in DC, that would confuse the car's computer long enough to think that there was a massive short somewhere. This would trigger the computer to shutdown, but the computer system in a car isn't like a home computer. After a massive ground fault it will turn itsself back on again with no problems. They have no boot cycle and are well protected enough for an electric shock to do no damage to them. You can drive your car down the road, leave it in gear, and shut the key off. The engine will stop running, but turn the key back to the normal run position and it is instantly running again.
Think of this like you would think of a powerline falling on the car. it is pushing massive amounts of power through the metal but nothing from it can hurt the cars electrical. It is too well grounded within itsself (not to the earth), and DC power is way different than AC in terms of power disruption.
For an electrical blast to stop a vehicle it would have to make direct contact with the engine block (which is a vehicles main ground) and put out enough juice to fry ignition components (i.e. plug wires, powerpack, coil, etc.) but that would take a major amount of power, and would still be virtually inneffective against any vehicles electrical design.
edit: I know they show this happening in movies and there is plenty of talk about it happening, but it is simply something that does not exist right now. Maybe in a few years the technology would come that could make such a device, and there is a working EMP that the Navy tested, but this was mounted to the front of a carrier ship and was a large as a small house. The area of effect from this monster EMP was only like 50yards, and in that yard radius, there was a measured response from testing equipment, but nothing that could stop the electronic systems from functioning.
