That event propelled the movie into a box office hit, and the coincidence of a well-made fictional film with a real-life event with a very similar plot line led to a huge increase of public fears around the safety of nuclear power, and likely set the nuclear power industry back by decades.
Today we got to see the thing in action at the Pepcom event here at CES. The hardware is a small black plastic box that should plug into most cars sold in the US after 1996.