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I saw The Fate of the Furious movie today and I don't understand one scene.

The EMP that Dom stole is told to be able to shut down all the power sources, vehicles within one mile radius. Later in the movie when Dom uses the EMP which is mounted in the car he is driving, the EMP shuts down power to the entire Russian military space and it also shuts down a helicopter. But how does it doesn't do anything to Dom's car?

Edit: And also the communication channel through which Dom talks to Cypher is not affected by the EMP blast, I wonder how.

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    Good question, though I never once asked myself that while playing Need For Speed.
    – Johnny Bones
    Apr 13, 2017 at 12:40
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    I was more confused as to how the comlink between Dom and Cipher was still working after the blast. While one could argue his car had few electronics, the comlink definitely counted as one.
    – aryxus
    Apr 13, 2017 at 17:46
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    I mean, if you want to nitpick this scene there's a lot more errors than just "doms comm wasn't impacted by an EMP". There ARE EMP hardening tricks, so we can assume that with Cypher's level of expertise she'd thought of that.
    – A. McDaniel
    Apr 24, 2017 at 19:03

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A few reasons that this would be true:

  1. The cars built before the 1980s have relatively few electronics, and those that do don't have any major systems (such as braking, ignition, fuel injection, etc.) controlled by those electronics.
  2. Cars built before the 1980s also contain lots more metal and would work more effectively as a Farady cage and would make the car naturally more resistant to EMP pulses. And if the EMP "bomb" was set off outside of the car and it was hardened against the attack it is much less likely to have any issues.
  3. If the equipment was at least temporarily turned off during the blast it would likely not be affected, or at least not stand as much of a chance of being affected.
  4. The type of EMP attack used will change how it affects the electronics. I haven't seen the film so I can't verify which type of EMP attack was used. See this paper as reference for HEMP attacks.

As far as the communications, this could be handled via high frequency VHF radios which were hardened against EMP pulses. Something such as hardened HAM radios or even vacuum tube based technology would prove to be resistant.

Again, I haven't seen the film, but offering possibilities of how this could happen.

Here is an article all about hardening your own gear against EMF attacks.

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If I recall correctly, the car is a 1970s Dodge Charger which has no electronics to be affected by an EMP blast.

It's perceived wisdom that modern cars rely extensively on electronics for ignition and control systems that could be adversely affected by an EMP burst.

There is conflicting evidence/opinion on this though.

Try this article for more information.

How To Prepare Your Car To Handle An EMP And Why You Shouldn't Bother

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