Or do we use the same amount of fuel using the cigarette lighter socket than if we weren’t using it?
Thanks!
I only thought it might because obviously electricity can’t be free, and the electricity from the lights etc comes from the battery being charged by the car engine running and using FUEL to power the battery, so surely not using the battery would save fuel? Or is it negligible and if we didn’t use appliances the energy would be lost as heat and friction anyway?
A tiny amount of fuel is used.
Lets say that you cruise at 60mph, your vehicle uses 15hp (11.2kW) to maintain that speed. You ipod charger uses maybe 10W. So your fuel economy will drop by 10/11200 = 0.09%
Thus is you get 30.00 mpg at a steady 60mph with out charging the device, now you’ll get 29.97 mpg during the time it takes to charge the device.
To put this in perspective, if you change your cruising speed by ¼ mph, it will have a greater effect on your fuel consumption than charging an ipod or cell phone.
not really, all that is doing is putting a tiny strain on the battery, its nothing to worry about, the only thing to worry about is if you have a massive audio unit, that might :p
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its eletrical doesnt use any fuel to run any it
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A small amount as the energy has to come from somewhere.
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no
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I have heard that the lights on your car don’t come free. If they were – we could plug in a whole city and light it up.
I will do some more research on that .
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A very small minuscule amount of gas is used.
So small you would not even notice the difference.
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Yes … but the amount of fuel required to drive the alternator to provide the additional few watts of power to charge your ipod or phone pales by comparison with the fuel you waste every time you rush up to a stop and brake hard to stop in time as opposed to coasting for the 1/4 mile approaching the stop light or sign to avoid unnecessary braking.
Serious about conserving fuel? then go to:
http://www.hypermiling.com/
By following the driving techniques they recommend, I increased the fuel economy in my F-250 Super Crew pick up truck from around 12 mpg to over 18 mpg. That is an incredible 50% improvement simply by changing MY driving habits! And I thought I was a good driver!
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30 years behind the wrench and wheel.
A tiny amount of fuel is used.
Lets say that you cruise at 60mph, your vehicle uses 15hp (11.2kW) to maintain that speed. You ipod charger uses maybe 10W. So your fuel economy will drop by 10/11200 = 0.09%
Thus is you get 30.00 mpg at a steady 60mph with out charging the device, now you’ll get 29.97 mpg during the time it takes to charge the device.
To put this in perspective, if you change your cruising speed by ¼ mph, it will have a greater effect on your fuel consumption than charging an ipod or cell phone.
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technically yes because it puts more drag on the engine because your alternator has to work harder. but the drag it needs to charge an ipod or phone is very little, you will NOT see a difference in your fuel economy.
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No , the lighter runs off of the battery , not fuel. It would take two or three days of constant ipod charging to run your battery down if the engine wasn’t running. When the engine is running, the alternator is running, charging the battery. There is a voltage regulator built into the alternator that cuts off it’s charging capacity when the battery reaches 14 volts charge and cuts on at approximately 12.6 volts , so it won’t use any extra gas because it is running the alternator anyway.
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are for real?
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