My truck charges the battery when I first crank it up and the entire time I'm driving it. Charges at 14.7 V - 14.1 V
Perhaps the e-torque equipped trucks use a different charging profile.
Id like to verify what mine (hers) runs at however I suspect it doesn’t continously charge as the truck is always down to the low to mid 12’s for voltage even after just a day of non-driving. The battery doesn’t seem to have a parasitical drain on it otherwise it would have long since died since she doesn’t drive but maybe weekly, sometimes not even that (April 2019 purchase and currently 11K miles...).
I haven't seen a voltage gauge for the instrument panel display that gives an actual numerical reading, just a “hard to tell whats happening“ sweep-style pointer. I do know that the battery charger and the multimeter both match within .1 volt and both indicate 12.4 to 12.5 within a day after driving vs 12.8 or 12.9 after being charged.
Having a resting reading of 12.4 is too low for good health/longevity on a regular basis.
A pretty decent article from AdvanceAutoParts.com states: “Measuring your car battery’s voltage can be a great way to determine how charged your battery might be. The ideal car battery voltage range will provide you with a relevant interval according to which you can measure precisely what the voltage says about the battery’s current charge.
A perfect voltage with the engine running is between 13.7 and 14.7V. With the engine off, you should get a reading of 12.6 volts. If the battery isn’t fully charged, it will diminish to 12.4V at 75%, 12V when it’s only operating at 25%, and down to 11.9V when it’s completely discharged. This data and the way it relates to the design of your battery should provide you with some useful insight into the functioning capacity of your car battery.” (End of copied portion)
If some of you have an AGM battery, they prefer even higher charging voltages than do flooded lead acid (or even the same style but valve regulated lead acid). AGM’s typically like appx 14.8 volts for a bulk charge. For those of you who like the spiral wound Optima’s, they like even higher charging and have slightly higher “at rest” voltages.
The different manufacturers (theres only about 3-4 makers now for all of the 12v starting and marine type batteries, just a lot of rebranding going on) have slightly differing voltage specs for their products however they mostly agree on certain numbers.
You’ll have to look it up, or watch some YT videos like “How to charge AGM batteries” (7:15 long) from Delphi. Thats a good basic information video on both batteries and 12v chargers.
