Can a 12-volt car battery shock kill?

The shock from the car battery will not kill you. In fact, under normal circumstances, a 12-volt car battery usually doesn’t even shock you. That is not to say that car batteries completely harmless. There are many ways to get injured by car battery:

See how a 12-volt car battery can cause you harm

• Car battery acid can leak out of the battery and burn your skin.
• If a flame or spark is brought too close to a car battery with improper ventilation, hydrogen gas from the battery can explode, splashing battery fragments and acid all over your skin.
• Sparks (arcing) between a car battery terminal as well as other metal parts can cause the metal to get hot enough to burn you.
• If a car battery is short-circuited by a cable, the cable can heat up enough to catch fire.

There is enough danger at the moment, it is a good idea to be cautious around the car battery and follow the maintenance instructions in the car’s manual, even if the car battery electric shock does not occur.

In addition, this question implies that it contains a common misconception about high voltages that are independently dangerous. The ability of electricity to destroy biological tissue depends on the current and voltage. A very high voltage source provides a very low current that does not carry enough energy to cause harm. For example, a Van de Graaff tabletop generator (those charged metal balls you see in the science museum) can produce up to 100,000 volts. However, children often enjoy the shock and creepiness of these generators without getting hurt. On the contrary, a high current (even at a relatively low voltage) contains enough energy to hurt you. Therefore, the best indicator of the danger of a power supply is the amount of current flowing through your body, which depends in part not only on the voltage but also on the resistance and the amount of current the power supply can deliver.

Voltage is a measure of the potential difference between two points, similar to the amount of decline in the river from point A to point B. There are points that are similar to how much water is flowing in the river every second along the river. A few drops of water flow down a steep steep hillside carrying energy far below a gentle slope of a powerful river stream. In reality, both voltage and current play a role. A powerful river carries more energy as it glides over a cliff than a Mighty River slides over a gently sloping slope.

Now let’s apply these concepts to car batteries, which is a little more complicated than the first one. A car battery can provide a high current. The key to this curiosity is that it is the current that passes through your body, not the maximum current the battery can provide. They are different from each other. How much current actually passes through an object depends on three things:

1. The resistance of the object
2. The voltage applied, and
3. The amount of current the source can provide.

For people who touch a car battery, the skin has a very high resistance, which leads to a low current, and the battery has a low voltage, which leads to a low current. Even though the car battery can provide a high current, if the connection is correct, your body will not draw that high current. Voltage plays a role because it helps limit the total current in your body (as well as your body’s resistance).

The manual car Power, Electronics, Computer notes that ” the battery or charging system voltage usually does not produce enough current to flow, resulting in a serious electric shock.”

Credit:https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/11/01/why-is-a-12-volt-household-battery-harmless-but-the-shock-from-a-12-volt-car-battery-will-kill-you/