Betteries need a buff, badly.

[Warlance]

I'm not sure how this game expects me to ever use the radio, wipers or dome light, when battery power is at such a premium, and drains so fast from headlights alone. Also feels really bad that having the engine running doesn't charge the battery at all like any modern car would,

Seriously I'm not using any abilities or anything, just headlights and anytime I go out at night in the zone, I always have to bring a couple jumpers and it just feels bad, I can't even imagine how bad it'll be once I have abilities draining power, probably just won't ever use them

EDIT: for those of you arriving late you can stop repeated what others said, thank you.

[RHYGOSUM]

have you gotten any extra batteries?

[Wonzling]

Strange, I never had too much trouble with the battery outside of surprise anomalies. Are you sure you didn't run into some kind of draining event or your car has a quirk that causes it? Anyway, there's many options to increase battery size as well as options to charge it on the go. I've had good experiences with the lightning rod

[Raptor85]

I use abilities all the time, constantly leave my lights and radio on with no expansion batteries, I just use the rain generator and have only ever needed to recharge once when I had a "battery drains" area at the end of a 4 zone drive. If you're not even using abilities you may have the quirk that causes the battery to drain rapidly.

[Siamese55]

Or any charging devices like the lightning rod, solar panels, wind turbine, etc.?

Battery power felt tight at first, but since jumpers return over half your battery it was never dire. With solar panels and a turbine, I've had the radio on the entire time.

[Burning like KELT-9b]

would be great if we can upgrade our main battery. its literally the only thing that doesnt change througout the game. honestly, under the hood upgrades definitely could be expanded, its quite barren as it is.

[Kraehe]

Not sure about the dome light, but the radio and wipers don´t drain power. By now I have a backseat battery to increase my maximum charge, but even before that I never even had to use a jumper. Might be because I unlocked battery charging options (the lightning rod and the wind turbine) pretty early.
Honestly no idea why you would even turn on the domelight. I was like 15 hours in before I even knew I had one.
If you really have that much trouble you are probably leaving the lights on whenever you leave the car. Don´t do that.
Also, try to avoid anomalys that would force you into gadget use, like abductors where you would use the lim-pulse emitter.
Teleporting your car (T by default) also has a large drain on your car, not sure if you are maybe using that abiliity too much.
The only other scenario where I can see issues arise are high battery drain conditions. But you see the conditions before you start the drive, so plan accordingly.
I always carry some jumpers even though I have yet to use one.

Or maybe you are overstaying your welcome in the zones. You don´t have to fully clear every building and scrap every vehicle to make good progress in the game. Just grab enough to make the run worthwhile and leave.

In the end its supposed to be a ressource you have to manage properly. It doesn´t need a buff.

[literateAmateur]

As far as I can tell, the radio and wipers don't actually drain the battery.

[chaosonex]

Originally posted by Hugh Erick Sean:

would be great if we can upgrade our main battery. its literally the only thing that doesnt change througout the game. honestly, under the hood upgrades definitely could be expanded, its quite barren as it is.

You can, lead acid is t2, replaced by leak proof

Or so I think, in longingly looking at that tech tree lol

[Burning like KELT-9b]

Originally posted by chaosonex:

Originally posted by Hugh Erick Sean:

would be great if we can upgrade our main battery. its literally the only thing that doesnt change througout the game. honestly, under the hood upgrades definitely could be expanded, its quite barren as it is.

You can, lead acid is t2, replaced by leak proof

Or so I think, in longingly looking at that tech tree lol

im afraid that might occupy the back seat slot. i got the leak-resistant fuel tank and it occupies the back slot

[Cesar]

You can put an extra battery on a side rack. I put one on and it doubled the capacity. So far that did the trick and I haven't needed to use a jumper cable.

You can also put a lightning rod on your car that will charge the battery when it gets hit by lightning. I would think one of them spark towers would work. I haven't been able to test that out because I couldn't find one the last trip.

You can put a wind turbine on the side rack and I forget what it's called but something that takes acid rain and charges your battery. It looks like you put whichever one on to meet the conditions of where you're going.

[Warlance]

Originally posted by RHYGOSUM:

have you gotten any extra batteries?

2 backseat batteries, alleviated the problem slightly, but longer trips still result in having a dead battery. Maybe I'll try the generators like some other people mentioned. Either way tho the power consumption balancing needs to be addressed tho imo

[Abyssal Crow]

Radio and wipers dont drain power, only headlights and abilities or unique parts do. base battery is perfectly enough for most early and some mid runs, once you get any additional battery capacity it becomes largely ignored on regular use. The only reason you'd really need so much battery is if you're either running the AMP engine or spamming abilities, especially high cost ones like the ARC heal. Even then its not hard to make battery jumpers and the charge rods aren't that expensive once you start farming plasma.

[Warlance]

Originally posted by Abyssal Crow:

Radio and wipers dont drain power, only headlights and abilities or unique parts do. base battery is perfectly enough for most early and some mid runs, once you get any additional battery capacity it becomes largely ignored on regular use. The only reason you'd really need so much battery is if you're either running the AMP engine or spamming abilities, especially high cost ones like the ARC heal. Even then its not hard to make battery jumpers and the charge rods aren't that expensive once you start farming plasma.

Well I'm not doing any of that, and am still running into battery issues having to watch my power drain. Not sure how no one else is having similar issues unless you're all speeding through zones with no scavenging

[Abyssal Crow]

Originally posted by Warlance:

Originally posted by Abyssal Crow:

Radio and wipers dont drain power, only headlights and abilities or unique parts do. base battery is perfectly enough for most early and some mid runs, once you get any additional battery capacity it becomes largely ignored on regular use. The only reason you'd really need so much battery is if you're either running the AMP engine or spamming abilities, especially high cost ones like the ARC heal. Even then its not hard to make battery jumpers and the charge rods aren't that expensive once you start farming plasma.

Well I'm not doing any of that, and am still running into battery issues having to watch my power drain. Not sure how no one else is having similar issues unless you're all speeding through zones with no scavenging

I scavenge plenty unless It's early zone at this point as most early zone resources spawn in mid and center zones. My general operation is :
Drive, if dark then headlights, park somewhere and turn off headlights, walk around and loot, get back in, turn everything back on, move on. I only use abilities as needed and the biggest ability I've ever spammed is the resource radar, which I only use to find very specific loot via their icons.

So unless you're forgetting to turn off your headlights while you wander around for extended periods of time or are constantly spamming abilities, there shouldn't be much of an issue especially if you have literally any additional battery packs for your car racks.

Also make sure your environment doesn't have any battery sapping conditions or your car doesn't have any weird problems you need to throw an electricians kit at to fix. If you do have a battery setup on a rack, they can get issues that make them leak energy, usually fixable unless its the worn-down variant one that forces you to replace the part in question.

[Illusia]

I have two wind turbines and a solar panel on my car, never have power issues.I also rarely leave my components on though unless i need them. I got a spotlight on the top of my car. I use the limpulse and the nitro bumpers (nitro bumper is a trap....)
And I have a side mounted battery. I rarely go below 40 battery level now.