By Chris Skeldon 
Charging your cell phone in the car is often more than just an option; It is a necessity. This mainly occurs in cases of those who have very busy routines and spend a lot of time in traffic. However, there are some risks associated with this practice that can affect your device’s battery life.
First of all, it is important to know that charging your cell phone in your car means using the car battery as the power source for your smartphone.
However, unlike conventional household sockets—which are exclusively intended to supply power to certain electronic devices—, car batteries store energy for various functions of a car: air conditioning, engine starting, among many others—including charging a cell phone.
Therefore, it is common for oscillations to occur in the electric current that reaches the phone during charging, after all, at the time of this practice, the power reserve can be used simultaneously for other functions of the car as well.
Unstable current can, in turn, harm the health of a cell phone battery, causing durability to drop further and further. With this in mind, we have separated some important tips for you to avoid problems and risks. Check it out below:
Do not charge the phone using a USB port
The USB port, when it comes directly from inside the car, is not recommended to be connected to the cell phone charger cable.
This is caused precisely by energy fluctuations, which end up being more common in these conditions. In addition, according to the expert, the USB input can increase the risk of a short circuit on the board.
It also increases the loading time which takes longer. This in the long run is harmful to the cell phone battery.
Therefore, the ideal situation is to use a vehicle charger suitable for this purpose, which is of high quality and approved by Anatel. On most vehicles, these are the 12V outlets.
Connect the cell phone only after the vehicle has started
Another basic care is to connect the cell phone to the charging cable only after starting the car.
This is because when a vehicle is started, it is common for – again – to experience fluctuations in electrical current, which can damage the cell phone battery and the internal components that it indicates on the instrument panel.
Beware of overheating
Another common danger associated with charging your cell phone in a car is overheating of the device, which happens frequently.
When a cell phone reaches very high temperatures, its performance suffers as well as the health of its battery.
In this way, certain measures, such as not using the cell phone while charging and not leaving it exposed to sunlight inside the car, are useful to avoid (or mitigate) the overheating of this battery.