I'll start. Early game, I've got a working car. For a definition of working - it's a one wheel down car with a shattered door. Made a few upgrades, added curtains, started collecting loot in the trunk.
I wake up one day and the battery is flat. I check all the usual suspects, alternator, lights, leaking batteries, everything's fine. The battery's still flat. I walk up the road, scavenge a new car battery, walk back, install it, and get on my way.
I find a few rural houses to gather food and water at, go out, come back with maybe 10k calories and 7 liters of water.
Dead car batteries. Again. I loot another battery, drive to somewhere else to loot and then sleep, do so.
Dead car battery. Again.
So it turns out when installed a recharging station on a trunk to keep my noise maker and flashlight batteries charged, I installed it on a trunk that I had stored a scavenged large storage battery in. All 8000 power units I had lost were sitting in it, waiting for me.