Skip to Content

Can You Use A Car Battery For Camping? (Answered)

Sharing is caring!

It is ok to use a car battery for camping but you should not think of it as a primary source of generating electricity.

To power appliances, fridges, etc you’ll need a deep cycle battery if you don’t want your car battery to drain to the point where you can’t even start your car.

You can read my other post where I’ve shared all the possible ways of generating electricity while camping.

How long will a car battery last for camping?

Asking for dry camping? Your car battery will last about 2-3 days in your recreational vehicle while driving which can be extended if you managed to use it only when it’s really important.

As I’ve already told you should head on to camping trips not just with your car and its battery as the battery – on the first hand, is designed to start the car and not run your appliances all day long.

What can I run from a car battery?

You can run a fridge for about 5 hours with a 20-minute compressor cycle while your car is running and there is a good chance that your car will still start.

Instead of the heavy appliances, you can very easily charge your laptops, phones, and GPS from your 12V car battery.

But one thing you need to aware of is while doing charging or running fridge it is important that your car is running and not stationed at one point if you don’t your car battery to drain even with a simple laptop.

Charging a laptop in a running car is not at all problem for the battery.

If you have the old generation car that only holds a 2 percent resting charge then your phone is enough to kill the battery of your car.

Seeing a 2% resting charge is unlikely but possible.

How to charge a phone with a car battery while camping

I know the text is not enough and not of any great help for this topic that’s why tutorials videos always beat the text.

Like this guy who has done a great job showing how you can charge your phone with a car battery.

Check it out if you want to

Sharing is caring!