You may have seen commercials on TV for the Porta-Jump emergency car starter. Their website describes their device as “a revolutionary advancement in emergency vehicle-care equipment. So small it can fit in the glove box or center console. So powerful it can charge any 12-Volt battery in a matter of minutes” and looking at the little guy, you just might agree with them on that whole “revolutionary advancement” thing. Size-wise, it’s almost small enough to fit in one of your bigger pockets. Well, assuming it’s a bigger pocket on your overcoat or something.
For years, the accepted way of starting your car when the battery died was to ask for help from someone with jumper cables. If you couldn’t find someone or if they didn’t have jumper cables, you were, more or less, out of luck. If you had a membership with AAA, then you were “lucky” and got to wait forty-five minutes (or so) for a tow-truck to show up. This is pretty much the case for most people, even today.
However, in the past decade, or so, battery technology has gotten to the point where almost anyone can afford to carry a literal battery with them where ever they go, just in case their actual car battery does give up the ghost. The Porta-Jump emergency charger actually represents the future–where battery-size has shrunk, along with price-size, to a perfectly reasonable package listing in at just $40.
But what does the Porta-Jump do, specifically? According to PortaJump.com, you simply plug this practically pocket-sized gadget into your dashboard-based cigarette lighter and wait. While you’re waiting, it’s sending energy to your car-battery through that cigarette lighter socket. While the website says it takes “minutes,” odds are that this process would probably take more like fifteen or even thirty minutes. When your car battery has enough juice to start the engine, the LED on the Porta-Jump turns green and you are good to go.
No waiting for AAA to show up, no having to carry jumper cables with you “just in case” and best of all, no getting your hands dirty by having to lift the hood and deal with those cables yourself.
