Ultimate Prepper Handbook
Last week, The Bride and I endured a total brake failure on her SUV, and The Bride got a rental vehicle while the repairs were being done.
She was driving a 2013 Dodge Journey. They call it a “crossover SUV”, but we both agreed it was a soccer-mom-mobile.
The car had touchpad ignition, keyless entry, and every system in the vehicle was electronic. The Bride’s first comment was, “IN AN EMP EVENT THIS CAR WOULD DIE!”
My Mom’s 1991 Mercury Sable suddenly looks like a prepper asset. Kept indoors for two decades, very low mileage, simple systems, runs great & probably somewhat EMP resistant.
My wife’s SRX has all the latest bells & whistles and thinks it’s smarter than me though that’s no great achievement.
We are too chip dependent. Way too dependent on chips. Mom said her new microwave oven was driving her crazy with all the programming menus, boop-boop-boop, etc. I spruced up the original 1976 Sharp microwave that was a wedding gift to us & gave it back (wife & I have a brand new kitchen). Mom is ecstatic; the Sharp has a power setting lever, a mechanical timer, and that’s it. Works like a champ.
“Newer is not always better”
Any car will die if it had a transistorized ignition and the EMP was very powerful. That means back to the early 60’s.
On the flip side, most systems can be shielded. It’s just not financially sound for manufacturers to produce vehicles like that currently.
If there is a EMP pulse, I am confident most of my hardware and systems and vehicles will be fine for the most part, maybe something like a 40% loss in system availability, while I manually diagnose all the random failures.
I also have a several generators. Not running, they will still have a induced voltage, but more than likely, the voltage rises won’t be great enough to damage their already voltage spiked protected systems. I seriously doubt in the worst case, that the coils themselves will be melted. It will simply be a matter of conjuring up the silicon parts in the various regulator components, etc.
“’“IN AN EMP EVENT THIS CAR WOULD DIE!””
But not a solar flare......
Ultimate Prepper Handbook
Glad everyone's OK! Was this a dual-hydraulic failure, brake pedal/linkage failure or ?
I had a rental last week, my truck was in the shop because I hit a deer. The rental car I had would be dead as well.
We have an old pickup and a newer one so a little of both, but we also have horses and I am pretty sure they have no electronics- that I am aware of.