What effect would an EMP have on modern day vehicles?

Just rip out the ECM - if the car still runs it's gonna handle that high altitude nuke blast just fine. You probably won't have a radio but that's really a good thing because playing a radio will only attract the atomic-zombies. Make sure you always go for a head shot!

Doubtful. Anything with a PCM/ECM/TCM, electronic ignition or even an electronic voltage regulator in the alternator has the potential to be damaged. If the vehicle is off and you are able to disconnect the battery(ies) before the EMP they have a better chance of surviving.

Nahh, disconnecting the battery won't do anything much because the basic configuration of the system remains the same.

The good news, though, is that the amount of digital stuff in modern cars has required the shielding and ground configurations to be dramatically improved compared with the cars of the eighties. When you have proper shielding and you don't have ground loops, it makes it that much harder for noise to get induced into the system in the first place.

Back in the eighties it was not uncommon for a five-watt 2M transmitter keyed up next to the car to confuse the ECU. The improvement in layout and grounding design that has mostly eliminated these problems are also going to reduce the EMP issues. Things have improved a lot since then.

EMP does damage because it is induced into cabling acting as antennae and then carried into electronics. Filtering and high voltage clamping on the electronics side, combined with keeping the stuff from getting induced into cabling in the first place are the first line of defense.

EMP is really just the usual RFI suceptibility problem, just with a whole lot more RFI.

--scott

You would need to go WAY back to the 70's to find ones that would still run. Points and carbs would still be OK.

Anything with electronic ignition would be finished, Unless it was VERY well shielded. Modern vehicles don't stand a chance. Neither does about 90% of the control systems for various items around the world. Anything that isn't shielded from the EMP will shut down.