"One of the weird quirks of working from home and owning a lot of cars is that I might go a month or a few between driving a specific vehicle. This is especially true in the winter, when I just won't drive my favorite cars at all to keep them out of the road salt. Many of my vehicles don't have the privilege of sipping from a battery tender. Yet, when I'm ready, the cars fire up when it's time to drive."
"The thing I was the absolute worst with was keeping batteries alive. Until recent years, if I bought a car, I could almost guarantee that I'd let the battery die. My original solution was clunky: I used to remove the batteries from my vehicles and place them on shelves in my dining room. I joked with the then-staff of Jalopnik that I had a 'battery wall.'"
"Over time, I got battery tenders for the vehicles that get to live in my mini warehouse, my garage at home, and the garage at my parent's house. But how do I keep the batteries topped up in cars that are parked outside here at home? I never really had to think about it until I started working from home."
Working from home with multiple vehicles creates challenges for battery maintenance during long storage periods, especially in winter. The author previously struggled with dead batteries, attempting solutions like removing batteries to store indoors. Battery tenders were installed in some vehicles, but outdoor-parked cars presented a problem. The solution emerged through solar charging: sunlight penetrating car windows naturally trickles charge into batteries, maintaining them during months of inactivity. This passive solar method eliminates the need for constant maintenance or expensive equipment for vehicles stored outside, allowing cars to start reliably whenever needed despite minimal use.
Read at The Autopian
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