Why do some people suffer so badly with static electric shocks?
The whole planet is engulfed in a dense blanket of air molecules and as your car drives along it has to push those air molecules out of the way. The reason a car makes a noise as it goes along is because it’s creating turbulence and making air molecules bash against each other and the car and that sort of ripples away. What this means is that static charge builds up on the car because it’s isolated from the road. This is because most cars have rubber tyres and rubber is a good insulator. It’s a little bit similar to when you have a storm cloud and want some lightning. You’ve got lots of water molecules and little ice crystals called hydrometeors. The wind currents inside the clouds bash these things around and as they slowly rub against each other they transfer charge. You end up with a cloud that has one charge at the top of the cloud and the other charge at the bottom of the cloud and that’s why you get a lightning bolt. So it’s sort of doing a similar experiment with your car at roa
