I doubt if just attaching one pole will do anything...there is no complete circuit. Car batteries carry a lot of amps (hundreds of cold cranking amps.) I bet your wrench had arc-marks on it.
That's probably what a part of the electric car push is all about. We'll see cut-off switches built in, which the police will be able to activate.
Seems to me that GM vehicles with "OnStar" used to have the capability of being disabled remotely by the OnStar support. Supposedly to be used for stolen vehicles or whatever. Or I may be dreaming again. I haven't owned GM since 2010 or so.
I know next to nothing about car elec systems, but since the car body is negative and the arrow with a positively charged wire is attached, wouldn't that make a complete circuit ? Yep, my wrench had a huge gash in it.
That wire is positive only relative to the (-) post on the same battery, and the car body is negatively charged only relative to the (+) post on its battery. If you set 2 batteries next to each other and lay a wrench across (+) on Battery #1 and (-) on Battery #2, nothing will happen. You may have heard of the fear of Electro-magnetic Pulses (EMPs) killing our satellites, electronics, etc. These could come from the sun, or they could come from a transmitter. What you would need to kill the electrical systems in those cars would be a transmitter creating an EMP strong enough to overload the car's electronics (yet not so strong it would fry the electronics of nearby non-target vehicles.) Or as Ken alluded, the government could install devices in everyone's cars so they could be disabled remotely (if such devices are not already installed in newer vehicles.)
This sounds like a fantastic idea. It would take decades before nearly all cars are elec , BUT your idea it could very well solve the high speed chase problem.
You consider it to be a solution to give the government control over whether your car will move or not?
Wouldn't it be simpler to just stop making cars that can go at such high speeds. Cars that can travel at 100 + miles an hour are a danger at any time. Considering that the UK 'motorway' speed limit is 70 - and all other roads are less than that, why are cars designed to travel at 100 anyway ? If private cars were set at 70 - or even 60 and police cars were set at just a little higher, it would be impossible for a private car to outrun a police car.
Given control over your car, you know it won't be restricted to that. Once enough people are driving government-controlled cars, they won't feel the need to ask you not to charge your car when the electrical grid is overwhelmed (meaning that people who are more important than you need it), or they won't have to beg you not to drive, they'll simply disable your car. We have a 75mph speed limit here.
In Southern California, when I lived there, the California Highway Patrol had a high-speed Mustang called The Interceptor. Unfortunately, they still couldn't catch young folks riding Ninja motorcycles thru the hills. And, those young people bragged about not being caught.