What happens when a car’s brain gets fried by lightning
Lightning ranks second to tornadoes as the cause of death in the U.S. by killer storms, which are in their peak season. In 2017, nobody has yet died from a lightning strike in the U.S., reports the National Weather Service, although more than 30 people have died as a direct result of tornadoes.
Most cars can be safe places to ride out a lightning storm, yet no cars are safe during a tornado, an irony that, combined with some misinformation — such as that rubber tires are good insulators — confuses motorists about what to do when driving during a severe storm.
The NWS says an all-metal car protects occupants from lightning like a Faraday cage: a shield that redirects electricity from a strike into the ground. Tires are not even close to being effective insulators; lightning can reach 50,000 degrees, and strike 10 miles from the storm which generated it. And convertibles or cars like the new Lexus LC500 with a weight-saving carbon-fiber roof will not stop lightning.
But being safe from lightning is only half the battle: Severe storms also produce tornadoes, and winds of more than 100 mph from an EF1 — the majority of the 1,000 tornadoes reported in the U.S. each year — can send a passenger vehicle tumbling.
Michigan ranks halfway among the 50 states for the number of tornadoes it gets: about 15 per year, which kill roughly four people, although that average is skewed slightly by a monster twister in 1953 that took 116 lives north of Flint. About 40 people are injured each year by tornadoes in Michigan, while lightning kills just two people and injures about 20 in the state annually. On average, lightning is fatal to about 10 percent of people who are struck, says the NWS. Experts agree that the safest place in a storm is indoors.
And that goes for your car, too. In September 2014, a year-old Toyota Venza five-door wagon was parked at a suburban Detroit bowling alley during a thunderstorm, and it wouldn’t start when the owner returned. The car looked just about perfect, no damage, no leaks. When the owner tried to turn the key, nothing happened. The car was towed to Page Toyota in Southfield, where technicians figured it would be an easy fix such as a blown fuse.
But the car was a total loss. After three days of work, the technicians found that all of the car’s 28 computers had likely been fried by lightning. The insurance adjuster wouldn’t risk spending the money required to find out if more damage had been done, such as to wiring.
Dave Davis, a 12-year veteran technician at Page, said, “We probably spent $3,000 to $5,000” replacing the engine computer, the vehicle power-management computer and the “smart key” computer. Each cost about $600, not including labor, and still the car’s engine would only run at idle speed, and nothing else electrical worked.
“The car took a direct hit; it must have had an enormity of electricity. On this one, everything was fried,” said Davis. By comparison, an ultra-luxury Lexus LS model can have up to 45 computers connected by seven internal networks.
Insurance industry folks we spoke to said larger insurers such as State Farm and Farmers Insurance don’t break out the data for comprehensive damage payouts to know how many total losses have been caused by lightning, although Davis said that if lightning damage was common, he would know about it from the technician community.
After working on the Venza for three days, Davis and Page shop foreman Bill Risinger, a 20-year technician and electrical expert, summoned Adam Baker, a support technician from Toyota who had seen lightning-struck cars before. Baker examined the wheels of the car and spotted two-inch-long melted surfaces on three of them.
“I looked at it the antenna,” recalled Davis. “It was amazing. The antenna acted like a lightning rod, and then the lightning went out the aluminum wheels, and you could see the burn marks. Car guys like us would never think to know this in a million years,” said Davis, adding the owner purchased another Venza and is still driving it.