Home Forums Hardware Mac Desktops & Notebooks Charging Mac with the Car

I have a great car charger for iphone, can it work with Macbook? I'm stumped because the charger cord for macbook does not have a usb plug on the end only a US socket to macbook

The MacBook requires much more juice than a phone, which is normally reflected by the changer with more Watts of power. A charger is limited in how much it can deliver. A 85W charger will recharge the notebook battery much faster than a 12W charger, but e.g. the iPhone X will never ask more than 18W from any charger.

What exact model of notebook do you have? Apple has gone though various methods of connecting chargers to notebooks, each not compatible with the previous.

Find the right power adapter and cable for your Mac notebook - Apple Support

I already have the charger, it cost $80 or so for Macbook Air, and I have the car charger, but confused, and for car charger you plug in a usb cord and for macbook air, I only see a two prong that plugs in wall.

Chargers for your Apple devices are designed to convert power from an input source into suitable output power that meets the needs of your device.

These parameters are normally defined as voltage, amperage and hertz in cycles per second....if you look closely at your MacBook charger you will find the input parameters for the power source(s) that it can convert from and the output power rating in watts that it can deliver to your MacBook.

The input source for your MacBook charger is alternating current at 50 to 60 hertz, and within the range of 100 Volts AC to 240 Volts AC......that's why it has two prongs to plug into your house rather than a DC adapter plug which would fit your car.

I don't think that Apple produces a DC to DC adapter for the MacBook....there may be a third-party product which would do the job, or perhaps you could find an inverter that has sufficient power handling capabilities to plug into the car, convert the 12 Volts DC into 110 Volts AC, then you can plug your MacBook charger into that to reconvert to the DC charging voltage that the computer needs......

Hope this info helps.

All of the car chargers I have seen are very simple devices designed to take the 12 volt DC input from an automobile socket and reduce it down to 5V DC and feed it out through a USB type A output socket. More expensive models may also limit the output amperage to prevent overloading some devices. But their main purpose is to provide an interface between the automobile and a USB type A sockets.

Laptop power supplies (a.k.a. power bricks) are far more complex that, with appropriate socket adaptors, accept 100 - 240 volt, 50 - 60 cycle AC, convert it to the voltage and power your MacBook Air is designed to work with. I don't know what the voltage is — perhaps 5 volts but it could be more or less and a maximum power of 45 Watts and their output is via a dedicated power cord and cannot be charged via the USB port. (NOTE: Recent MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt3/USB C ports use that instead of a dedicated power connection.)

What you need is an AC car power inverter similar to this, this, or this and then plug your laptop power supply into that.

Thanks U/ and Joe. Darn, don't know if I can get that in time for this driving trip but will try!

Those links were to Amazon and they offer free overnight or even same day shipping to Prime customers on many products.

Ah.. too late going today. Bestek does not sell in stores. Anyway my fault, thought too late or thought the charger for iphone coule do it.. but anything at an Apple store?

The only thing I can think of at an Apple Store that might suffice is an iPad Pro. They are in many ways better than a MacBook when traveling. they are lighter, longer battery life, charge from almost any USB charger (albeit really slow charging on an iPhone charger), and some of the graphics apps are as good as or better than those available for the Mac. Get the keyboard and the pencil and you may begin to wonder how you ever got along without them.

I save some money by getting the version without cellular capability because I am seldom without WiFi connectivity and even then I can create a hotspot with my iPhone and get to the internet that way.

MacBooks require around 24 volts DC to charge. (I think they work down to 18v?) The simplest method to charge that from a 12v source is with a basic power inverter and your regular AC adapter.

One way or another it's going to have to get inverted and rectified up to a higher voltage, and then chopped down and regulated anyway. So it's not really that much less efficient than a self-contained dedicated unit that does both. Dedicated DC-DC converters are always more expensive than the sum of their parts for some reason.

A 140 watt inverter can be bought easily for under $25 if you look around. (mot come with one or two USB charge ports also, look for that feature) I paid $15 ea for three little ones here, and I have several other larger ones as well. Very handy.