Charge portable power bank from car 110v outlet

WesternRoadtripper1
Sat, 21 Jun 2025 05:50:48 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

I have a small (7.7 lb) capacity “portable power station” that I use when traveling, to recharge my laptop and other low power devices. It’s an Ecoflow River 2.

Before I bought the Ecoflow, I used a simple inverter to charge my laptop from the power outlet (aka: cigarette lighter).

To recharge the power station when I’m driving, I’d like to plug it into the 110 volt power outlet in my 2005 Sienna.

My only other option is to find places en-route where I can plug in the River 2 for about an hour. That means stopping at public libraries or the rare case when I overnight at a campground with hook-ups. For practical reasons, I’d rather recharge the Ecoflow while covering miles, but only if I’m certain I’m not frying the electronics on one end or the other.

The question is whether using the car’s 110V outlet is a safe way to recharge my power station.

If it IS safe, would it be significantly slower than plugging into house current?

I assume the Sienna must use an inverter to step up the voltage from the alternator to supply the 110V receptacle in the car. I don’t know if attempting that might somehow damage the car’s alternator and/or battery, or blow fuses, or fry the Ecoflow, by somehow demanding more energy flow than the system was designed to provide. .

What I do know is that a small LED desk lamp designed for standard house current works fine in the car’s 110V receptacle.

My first thought was to study the specs for the Ecoflow River 2. Unfortunately, I don’t understand the respective electrical factors well enough to know if recharging from the 110v port is fine, or if it is destructive to either to the alternator or inverter, or to the power station. Or maybe it’s fine, but would take a very long time.

I called Ecoflow for clarification, but unfortunately support agent knew less about this than I did.

Here are the Ecoflow specs which seemed most relevant to my question:
• Car input
12v/24v, 8A, 100W Max

• AC Input
100-120V50Hz/60Hz. 360W Max

I’ve not yet found any specs on what output I can expect from the car’s 110V system. I will look into that Monday morning if I can’t answer it online somewhere this weekend.

Thanks for any replies.

7 posts - 4 participants