this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
794 points (96.1% liked)
Technology
58303 readers
12 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Probably depends on the car + alternator, but it's not so rare for modern gas cars to have AC outlets for backseat passengers, and the ones I've seen are typically rated 120-150W or so. Glancing at the power meter I have on my fridge, it uses ~110W while running and only runs ~10% of the time.
Theoretically the car probably can keep up while running, BUT
Compressor startup current may blow whatever fuse is protecting that circuit.
AND
Cars are very inefficient generators. You'd be wasting a bunch of fuel so I wouldn't generally recommend it unless it's an emergency.
That said, in an emergency it may be worth doing for like 20 min on / 1 hr off, so that you're running the engine only when needed, but I'm not an expert, that's just pure speculation.