CHRISTOPHER CHOW
The current age of motoring has brought a lot of modern conveniences, with plenty of cool electronic features. However, these features – such as cameras, USB charging, phone-linking to our audio system, GPS, etc – have also resulted in greater demands on our car batteries. These, and the stop-start function.
Said function improves the car’s fuel consumption significantly by killing the engine. However, this requires more cycles from our batteries, and more drivers are complaining that the battery has to be replaced annually instead of every two or three years. Even worse, some cars simply died in the middle of the road.
With a new battery costing up to a few hundred dollars, the question is whether we are penny wise and pound foolish. The fuel savings and environmental advantages may be far outweighed by the cost and inconvenience of frequent battery changes.
Torque
Thanks for sharing your interesting thoughts on car batteries. Turn to pg 84 for our answers (by our mechanical engineer Shreejit Changaroth) to a few battery-related questions, including stop-start systems.
