Your car battery is an essential piece of your vehicle, providing one of the most important functionalities: starting the car. In most traditional vehicle types - that is, cars that run on gasoline - the battery is an SLI, a starting, lighting, and ignition battery. It's primarily used to start the engine, but also powers auxiliary components of the automobile including the lights and radio. Once the engine is running, the majority of the energy used to power your car is generated by its alternator. But turning the car on is an essential function of the car battery, a function without which the car is rendered pretty useless. When you turn the key and hear some sputtering, or maybe nothing at all, but the engine fails to start, a dead battery is probably the culprit. A jump start, also called a boost, is a procedure of starting a motor vehicle (most commonly cars or trucks) that has a discharged or depleted battery. A temporary connection is made to the battery of another vehicle, or to some other external power source. The external supply of electricity recharges the disabled vehicle's battery and provides some of the power needed to crank the engine. Once the vehicle has been started, its normal charging system will recharge, so the auxiliary source can be removed. If the vehicle charging system is functional, leaving the engine running will restore the charge of the battery, although it is usually recommended to drive the vehicle for a few minutes after starting to speed up the recharging process.