Exploding cars?

I have a scene in my story that has my main character use telekinesis to hold a car on a parasitic creature that is near immortal while in a host. The parasitic creature destroys the car, but I would like to know if it would explode, or not. If it would explode I would also like to know how big that explosion would be?

Every Car Is a Pinto.

Thanks, the ddescription of that trope indicated that it wouldn't explode, unless it was in an action movie. The way it's destroyed wouldn't even make it go up in flames.

Precisely. Cars and other machines don't explode if damaged in real life. Typically the best way to make something explode is with actual explosives.

I knew that most damage wouldn't make it expode, but until I read the Every Car Is a Pinto trope, I wasn't sure if using powers too completely destroy a car would make it explode, but anyway, thanks again for recommending the Every Car Is a Pinto trope.

edited 17th May '14 1:53:24 PM by david

Well if superpowers are entering the mix, then things become a bit fuzzier, but from what I can tell, the only powers at work here are telekinesis and super strength, so in this case no, the car still would not explode.

Just remember to be a bit more flexible with the quote unquote "rules" when you're writing supernatural fiction or soft sci-fi. It gives you more room to work with, and there's no real harm in it considering all the action movies supposedly set in the real world where things explode when you poke them.

edited 17th May '14 2:05:11 PM by KSPAM

Well technically what destroys the car is an energy attack, but the type of energy that is used for an energy attack wouldn't normally make somerhing expode, just damage it enough to destroy it.

It doesn't matter if the car explodes, or not, the parasitic creature gives the host a healing factor that would allow it too survive. I don't want unnecessary explosions in my story, but if something would explode under certain conditions then I want to show that.

Richard Marcinko of Rogue Warrior fame was quizzed on this and other conventions in fiction. He maintains that something like shooting a car or fuel tank will not generally make it explode, as there is no spark. Using tracer rounds it would be possible, but it's more likely to occur if something inside the vehicle combusts, like the truck in Films/Terminator2 showed realistically.

Telekinesis used to destroy a car? If you have it crumple or compacted then you would have the insides grinding against each other, the wires could spark, ignite the fuel and you would have engulfed in flames. Now were the car running on gas as opposed to fuel on the other hand then you would get the big fireball and explosion you see in films.

So, you're saying that with the main character's telekinesis and the parasitic creature's attack crushing the car, it could realistically get engulfed in flame, but not explode.

Well say you're driving a car normally, and the bearing or compressor is so old and worn it just drops out into the engine. Parts could get caught in the fan belt, pierce the radiator, ect and cause untold damage. That wouldn't cause the car to set fire or explode. Now let's take a car being crushed, in this case through telekinesis. What's inside the car that can cause a spark and set it alight? Friction, electrics shorting out, water getting into them perhaps. You have the battery that can spark and short, that's happened to me, if the car is being crushed then the fuel line being ruptured would be one of the things to occur, if the friction or spark is enough to ignite it (Mythbusters tried this and it ignites at 500 degrees, Fahrenheit I think) then the can would catch fire.

Your question is two pronged so let's look at fuel versus gas. When you burn fuel it's basically a propellent, a flammable liquid that easily burns up when set alight. This is aided if there is something to aid and feed it, dry bushes for example, the interior of a car depending on how fire retardant it is, but you're not going to get that explosion. Even if you try and use fuel to burn a can of deodorant or other such liquid or gas (needless to say Don't Try This at Home) you won't get the bang. A car that runs on gas on the other hand this is more likely to get that explosion you see in films. I'll try and use my limited scientific knowledge here, someone correct me if I'm wrong, gas is highly compressed, it's a rather tricky setup when used for fuel, you get problems with it such as it freezing and not getting the combustion to make the engine and car ignite and move. Now, in a fire when you have a room closed off with nowhere for it to escape or air to get to it when you open a door you get the backdraft, air rushes in, reacts to the fire, and the fire rushes out to escape. Take a highly compressed flammable liquid like gas and you'll get a big explosion. In your case I don't think simply piercing the gas tank would do the job, but you combine that with the gas rushing out and being sparked by something else (maybe that cigarette lighter that would have come dislodged and hot, if not hot enough to ignite then that's where Acceptable Breaks from Reality come in) then you'd get that nice boom.

Thanks, I'll just go with the starting a small fire. I doen't want to just make things explode to make them explode, but I would also like to put explosion were an explosion would happen, which is why I asked about this.

I would make it blow up for dramatic effect, personally. It's a chance to describe a pretty explosion.

edited 19th May '14 12:52:58 AM by Deebro

Key questions:

1. What kind of car is it? Gas? Diesel? Hybrid? Older? Newer? Zaporozhets?
2. Is the car running?
3. What is the car carrying? Any cargo?
4. How big is the car?
5. Finally, how does the creature destroy the car? Shredding? Incineration?

It uses gas, never thought about its age yet, but its not a zaporozhets. The car is not running. It doen't have any gargo. The car is neither a big car or a small car. The creature uses an energy attack to shred the car.

Then it'd probably explode. (Gasoline goes off at pretty much the slightest provocation so long as it's exposed to oxygen.) The blast wouldn't be very large though, a few meters in radius at most. (Though you also have the likelihood that the blast will simply be a fireball ignition rather than a Hollywood explosion.)

edited 24th May '14 8:49:50 AM by MajorTom

Thanks, it doesn't have to be a huge explosion.