Perfect partner for your power station

Refrigerators aren’t new in the automotive world, but before the recent portable power station boom, there wasn’t much demand for them outside of RVs and long-haul truckers. At $400, Bodega Cooler’s Car Fridge undercuts many established mobile fridge makers like Dometic by as much as $1,000 without compromising basics like its responsive touch interface, clear temperature readouts, and sturdy build quality. While Bodega Cooler also has options for #VanLife builds, quick day trips, and everything in between, the main focus today is its 64-quart offering that sports a dual zone fridge/freezer system.

We’ve mentioned the benefits of power stations before, especially during disasters and unexpected outages, but they can be just as game changing for planned outages, like camping or tailgating. Most power stations worth their salt can easily tackle phone and laptop charging duty with plenty of juice left over for loftier modern conveniences. Bodega Cooler’s Car Fridge fits that niche perfectly. As a direct replacement for a cooler full of ice, it still keeps your goods cold, all without the risk of melting ice seeping into your sandwich bags for a soggy surprise later.

Price, availability, and specs

Sizes for every budget

Between the multiple sizes available on Amazon, the Bodega Cooler Car Fridge line has options from $300 to $700, mostly just in this blue and gray color scheme. The 64-quart version we’re covering today has a $400 price tag, and occasionally goes as low as $300, though you may be more interested in the 80 and 32-quart versions, depending on your use case.

What’s good about the Bodega Cooler Car Fridge?

Still a value at this price

While the $400 price tag may seem a little high for those who haven’t been down the camping aisle in a while, it’s worth pointing out that the Bodega Cooler 64-Quart Car Fridge is normally only $25 more than Yeti’s 65 qt Tundra cooler. It’s practically the same capacity and price as a premium cooler, all while including a split refrigeration unit that will keep you from leaving camp for more ice. So, it’ll be difficult to choose a conventional cooler over it.

While one of the big features here is that split fridge/freezer setup, the divider in the middle can be removed, and the Bodega Cooler will automatically disable the freezer controls, working in a single-zone refrigerator mode. The racks are also removable, making it significantly easier to fit long racks of ribs or briskets inside. Removing the racks also provides access to the drain plug on the refrigerator side, which is a bit of a necessity for ice removal, since it isn’t frostless. Doing this also makes it easy to preload the fridge side with neatly nestled layers of cans.

As anyone with a chest freezer or conventional cooler is aware, having the lid on top of your cold box of choice, as opposed to its front, is an easy way to keep all your hard-earned cold air inside, making temperature maintenance much easier during frequent openings. What makes the Bodega Cooler so suited to its job isn’t just this well-trod thermodynamic principle, it’s that it’s paired with a cooling system that practically sips power. In our testing we saw between a 20 and 50 watt-hour draw whenever it kicked on, followed by extended periods of near zero power usage as it sat idle between cooling cycles.

That minuscule draw makes it perfect to use with most small to medium power stations. Connected to a Jackery Explorer 1000, it estimated over a day of power on this duty cycle, which can easily be extended when paired with a solar panel or two. If you’re dedicated enough to have two of Jackery’s 200W panels, two hours in the sun will buy you an entire day of refrigeration, making it easy to stay off-grid for weeks at a time, so long as you still have groceries to keep cold.

Even without continuous power, the Bodega Cooler is still well-insulated, and frozen bottles of Gatorade left inside were still cold and slushy two days later. With how low the power draw is, along with how spacious it is inside, it’s hardly a surprise how long it takes to get down to its rated temps, though. From room temperature, the fridge side took the better part of six hours to reach 35 degrees Fahrenheit, and Bodega Cooler recommends a day and a half for things placed in the freezer side to become frozen. This issue can be resolved easily by plugging it into a wall outlet a day or two before you leave for camp, so it’s hardly a deal-breaker.

What’s bad about the Bodega Cooler Car Fridge?

Not as smart as it lets on

The most frustrating issue with the Bodega Cooler Car Fridge, by far, is the hit-or–(mostly) miss app experience. While I wouldn’t call controlling your refrigerator from your phone an urgent need, it’s one of those features that I’d much rather not have than have a lackluster version of. Given the choice of spending another 30 minutes trying to connect my Pixel 8 Pro to the Bodega Cooler and walking over to press the buttons in meatspace, I favor the latter option.

Compared to the Yeti Tundra 65 mentioned earlier, the Bodega Cooler Car Fridge measures 2 to 3 inches shorter along its X and Y dimensions but stands six inches taller at 21.5 inches, and weighs 15 pounds more — an extra 50% of the Yeti’s weight — while empty. In its defense, it more or less has the guts of a dorm fridge shoved inside, so it’s not worth knocking any points off its score. And it’s unlikely that extra heft will matter while it’s fully loaded and being wheeled around.

Much like the aforementioned dorm fridge, the Bodega Cooler Car Fridge isn’t frostless, so while it may not need any ice to keep your cans chilled, plenty can build up inside over time. This is much less of an issue here, since it sports a drain in the bottom, making it significantly easier to maintain than your collegiate beer stash. The big concession with this design, when compared to a conventional refrigerator, is that it depends more on direct contact as opposed to conditioned air blown in to chill its contents, leading to much longer timeframes to chill or freeze anything you add inside.

Should you buy it?

One of the first upgrades I’d make

Extended chill time and hefty size aside, it’s hard to deny the value proposition the Bodega Cooler Car Fridge offers. With a conventional cooler, it’s pretty typical to end your weekend getaway with it half-full of tepid water and the ten diet Sunkists no one was desperate enough to drink. Conversely, with the Bodega Cooler, you can actually utilize the space normally occupied by ice, heading into the wilderness with significantly more refreshments without taking up much more space.

The biggest concession here is that the Bodega Cooler is at its best if you already have a power station, along with some solar panels to keep it topped up. If that’s the case, an upgrade to your off-grid activities like this is one of the first quality-of-life improvements I’d suggest.