Whenever electro-static discharge is discussed, it is usually in reference to electronic units and their susceptibility to ESD.

But what about the wiring on its own? I deal with automotive grade wiring and the dielectric test only goes to 1000 V. What if I had a wire connected to ground and I zapped it with 8 kV or more from an ESD tool? Would it cause damage?

 

Assuming nothing is connected to the other end, any damage would be limited to holes in the insulation where it broke down and allowed an arc to some lower potential [nearby] item (such as the car's frame or chassis).

 

Assuming nothing is connected to the other end...

What if the other end did have a solid connection to chassis ground? There wouldn't be a place for an arc to occur, but there would be an instantaneous current. Would that damage the wire? The human model is a 150pF capacitor, so at 8 kV you would have only about 5 mJ of energy.

 

With wire instantaneous current isn't a big deal. If you melt a microscopic dot of wire so what? Only with semiconductors does that microscopic blob mean anything.

Have you read this?

ElectroStatic Discharge