On Thu, 06 Feb 2014 17:55:55 +0100, Leviatan wrote:

Linear or switched voltage regulators, as the ones used in phone chargers,
are mostly self current limiting, so there is no risk, just that moto-G
will tabe a bit longer to charge.

I understood that the risk of the Moto-G sinking too much current is
minimal (since I assumed it had current-limiting circuitry to prevent
battery overcharging).

However, if the Moto-G takes, say, 1 Amp to just run whatever is running
on it (admittedly high, but this is just a worst-case scenario), and if
the USB port is only a typical 500mA port, then the battery will slowly
discharge.

In practice, if you're charging your Moto-G, most of the time you're not
also using it, except in the case of GPS and bluetooth and dashcams which
is what you'd be using in a car.

So, the key problem is that the *car* charger has to be beefy just to
keep up with the demands of the phone, and not just those of the battery.

PS: I'm debugging exactly that problem on my Samsung Galaxy S3 as we speak.