Leaving your headlights on used to mean a knock on a neighbor’s door—or a long and maybe costly wait for a tow truck. But battery technology changes everything, whether for cars or portable blenders or power packs. Portable jump starters now don’t cost much more than the price of a single tow and can jolt your car awake even with a bone-dead battery. Most can also charge your phone or laptop in a pinch.
My conversion moment happened in a remote stretch of northern Delaware, where I’d left my headlights…
