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Without using a battery charger, about how long will a 12V vehicle battery last while sitting connected in an unused vehicle?

In other words, how often do you need to drive a vehicle in order to keep the battery from going bad?

Obviously, using a trickle charger (preferably solar!) or disconnecting the battery will help extend the life of the battery, but I am interested in the answer when no charger is used and the battery is connected.

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    There is an inherent issue with your question, that being every vehicle has a different rate of power usage. Every vehicle will drain the battery at different rates. There is no way to tell you specifically what your or any other vehicle uses. A lead acid battery which is not attached to anything will lose about 5% of charge per month, that's about the best any one of us can tell you.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Aug 13, 2015 at 3:21
  • Also: While it's easy to calculate when a battery will be totally drained due to (known/measured) self-discharging and power consumption (remote key, alarm), the main purpose of a battery is to start the motor - which needs lots of power. You need to know how much charge must be left in the battery to start the motor. This depends on battery size and age, motor size and its "willingness to start" and ambient temperature.
    – sweber
    Aug 13, 2015 at 9:23
  • @Paulster2 and sweber Thank you for bring up excellent points. How about a rough estimate or average range? Let's assume a low drain vehicle with a properly sized battery and a 6 cylinder engine.
    – End Anti-Semitic Hate
    Aug 13, 2015 at 10:07

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