why do we ground car batteries and not other batteries?

[G-Difficult]

So this might come off as a dumb question with a simple answer but I'm loosing sleep over it. Lol.

In any circuit, you need to have a complete "loop" for it to work. And I think in any circuit, if you ground it, you would short it out...right?

[corey0928]

http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Why-does-a-circuit-always-have-to-have-ground

For people who think its too much too read. You always have some kind of ground reference

[yurvalentine]

The ground is just last part of the curcuit

[3vil]

Wouldn't it be the first part of each circuit, seeing how electrons flow from the negative side towards the positive?

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

The only reason to ground the negative is so the manufacturer of the car can save a few bucks by not having to run two wires to every device. The ground is just the negative conductor. It is not a problem as long as only one side of the battery is grounded. Back in the day, the positive was grounded instead of the negative.

[bigmizzle99]

I think the term " grounding" in terms of a car is misleading. Its not actually grounded to earth like home electricity. The ground in a car is the return leg of the circuit, like the common in home electricity.

The chassis acts as the return, completing the circuit.