For a number of safety reasons the traction battery only engages when the car is about to be driven (or is being charged). So the 12v battery handles everything up to the point where you ‘turn the key’. Hoists have considerable drain on that battery and this does limit what hoists can be installed in an EV, even on cars that have been designed to take ICE or EV traction systems.
To help with that Autochair at least now offers a battery pack to power their hoists that keeps the hoist off the 12V system completely. By completely I mean you have to take it off and charge it off a 240v supply.
Up until Q4 2005 it was offered as a separate accessory in the Motability managed list of adaptations, but now it’s only on hoists up to 80kg as part of a bundle. I think it’s still an option for Autochair’s 100, 150 and 200kg hoists but Motabilty won’t fund it, so that has to be a customer managed solution, assuming you can get Mobility’s permission.
If the hoist actuators were rated to 24v dc you could actually power the hoist from the 24v mob device by plugging in a flying lead to mob device charge point.
Not all mobility devices that need to be hoisted are powered (self propel wheelchairs etc) , and not all that are powered run on 24v.
I’m not sure I’d personally want to sacrifice wheelchair range, especially as I’ve never seen an in-car wheelchair battery charger offered.
