I've been complaining about car batteries for years and honestly I feel a bit embarrassed that I never figured this out on my own. I drive from Al Nahda to Al Quoz every day. Anyone who knows that route knows it's nothing but traffic. Stop, go, stop, go. Sometimes I'm crawling for twenty minutes just to move one kilometer. I always assumed that as long as the engine is running, the battery is being charged. That seemed logical to me. Engine running equals alternator spinning equals battery charging. Simple right? Wrong. I was reading an article last night about how traffic affects car electrical systems and I learned about stop and go traffic battery drain . The article explained that at idle speed, especially with the AC on full which we all do here for most of the year, the alternator produces less power than what the car is using. So even though the engine is running, the battery is actually losing charge slowly. The alternator only produces full charging power when the engine is running at higher RPMs, like when you're actually driving at normal speed. So all that time I spend crawling in traffic, my battery is slowly draining instead of charging. Then I finally get to an open road and drive for maybe ten minutes before I reach my destination. That's not enough time to fully recharge what was lost during an hour of traffic. I feel so stupid for not understanding this basic thing. Now I'm wondering if I should take a longer route that has less traffic even if it adds distance. Or maybe buy a battery charger and use it on weekends. Has anyone else with a long traffic commute figured out a way to keep their battery healthy? I'd really appreciate any tips because I'm tired of replacing batteries every year.