Perhaps this topic would be better on the Current Events page.

Anyway, the news reports on the incident indicated there was a big secondary explosion, indicating the car might've been carrying a lot of explosives. Also, the first pictures did show pieces of debris. Later pictures showed the burnt ground after the debris was removed, as shown here. You can see the wreckage by clicking on the video on this page.

As for the Hellfire missile itself, it was designed to destroy tanks. It can go through several inches of armor. It'd really do a number on a car, especially one that might've been carrying explosives.

There is a lot of work going on involving high energy lasers. Just within a few days, the Army announced it had successfully destroyed artillery shells in flight using a ground based laser. The airborne laser aircraft has been rolled out but laser tests have not started yet. There is a project to build a space-based laser but it's still in the conceptual phases. An earlier program was canceled several months ago and they're attempting to regroup.