The Power Of Your Car: What The Japanese Know And

The Power Of Your Car: What The Japanese Know And We Don’t

Picture this. Five days a week, you get into your car, ready for the hour long commute to work, school, the caf your sister insists has the best breakfast. You turn on the radio, plug in your cell phone to recharge the battery, plug your Bluetooth into the second outlet on the console, adjust your ipod on the dash, and decide you’re ready to go. Sound familiar? With commute times of U.S. drivers on the rise since ABC News reported in 2005 that 220 million Americans spend an average of more than 1.5 hours a day in their cars, it’s reasonable that we’ve done all we can to make that portion of our day as comfortable and efficient as we can.

And we’ve done a pretty good job. MP3 players, cell phones, Bluetooths, DVD players, even laptop computers have become commonplace in the car but what impact has that had on our vehicles themselves?
Most car batteries aren’t designed to support an apartment-worth of electronic equipment and the result: they don’t last nearly as long as they used to.

What’s the solution? Well, if we take our cue from Japan...