Recharger has a constant power drain regardless of the number of items it actually recharges.
Current vehicle system doesn’t support constantly-on effects. It doesn’t support partial energy usage (like limiting motor output when running “on fumes”), it doesn’t even support “if(enough energy) use energy, else don’t”. Energy deficit isn’t per-part - if you have low energy, all consumers turn off.
What you’re asking for is not a bug fix, but a non-trivial feature request.
I have lying unimplemented code for something that would solve your issue, though. I once tried implementing something like car electric outlet that would allow using car batteries directly, without a rechargeable battery in between. The project failed because item crafting is directly tied to item charges, but I managed to override the default “consume charges” system and change it to something more UPS-like - items sitting on “outlet” vehicle part would use car battery energy before consuming own charges.
I could copy the code responsible for the above, make it work with a recharging station even when it’s off and send it as a PR. I think it would get accepted, as recharging station doesn’t get much love and that would make it much more convenient for crafting.
