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Car battery life can decrease if it is operated or parked in a hot temperature location. The low elevation southwest deserts, southern TX or south FL are hard on car batteries due the length of the hot weather season, especially if the car is parked in the sun or in a garage that is hot as an oven. Most other places in the US have not much more than 3-4 months of heat, so likely not as severe.
Some people don't verify that the battery cables have a tight connection to the battery, and that will make a difference in battery life too. The battery doesn't get fully charged.
Some cars have auto-off when the car comes to a stop, then auto-start. Does that frequent use of the starter have an impact on battery life? Maybe so. My Honda Fit base model does not have auto-start-stop, thankfully.
The Buick Encore with the Direct Injection engine and start/stop uses a different battery (absorbed glass mat) than the standard engine without start/stop.
I've been buying batteries every 5 years (Wooster, Ohio). If anything, they seem to be more reliable. I ordered a 1983 Plymouth Horizon with the optional heavy-duty battery. It failed abruptly after 3 years. When I get a replacement, I go to the auto dealer and get the most expensive battery available for the vehicle I have. At one time, I would buy Sears Diehard batteries, but the Sears auto store is a thing of the past in my area.
Conventional batteries do not like to be completely discharged. That's one reason I start the tractor each month and let it run about 15 minutes.
It is under the hood. I am in FL as well. Just had the new bat checked at Autozone where i bought it and it shows it is weak. Only drove the car 3 miles so maybe i need to drive it more to charge it. Could have sat on the shelf for a while. I did remove the Neg cable while the car was running to see if the ALT was bad but the car still ran. It cranks fine for now and runs fine.
You've mentioned hot weather - what about colder climates? Batteries discharge faster in cold weather.
C6 Vettes are hard on a Battery and my Vette is a everyday driver. I do a reg check of things on my Vettes.
While that maybe true but I doubt it because the function of 12v battery is not to run your car electronics while the motor is running. That's the job of your alternator, if you have a weak alternator then your battery will get depleted very quickly. If you probably maintained your battery and using a battery checker regularly, a charged battery can sit for weeks without losing much charge as long as it is not connected. There are cheap $10 battery disconnects that allows you to kill the car's connection. You may have a short somewhere in the car. It is a very common problem when there's an open circuit in the car and it drains the battery very quickly.
The way to tell if a battery is good or bad is to have a good charger that can slowly charge a battery for 4-8 hours then see if it's able to bring it up to good charge in room temperate and not too hot or too cold.
If garage kept you may want to consider putting a Battery Tender on it. Especially if sits for 3 or more days. This was the advice of my dealership's service writer.
Purchased mine at Walmart. Easy to install. Do a Google for best model for vehicle.
3 pages of replies, and everyone is overlooking the greatest factor, in shortened battery life. It's the current (no pun intended) state of automobiles. Every car today, has a number of microprocessors, and many of these wonderful electronic gizmos never shut down. Even with the car in an "off" state, there is still a small draw of current that goes on 24/7 (think anti-theft system, for one example). Combine that with usage that consists of numerous, daily, "short hops", and the battery never fully charges, and in turn, lives a short life.
I, too, own a late model Corvette (a 2001), and I'm deeply involved in a couple of Corvette based discussion websites. Batteries are a frequently discussed topic. And the general consensus is that if you don't drive the car regularly, and for at least 20-25 minutes, when you do, the internal electronics will drain the battery to where it won't start the car, within 12-15 days. And yes, it also seems that "consolidation" of battery manufacturing, has also caused a decline in battery quality. There's no longer multi-manufacturing competition, driving the companies to make a better product.
For those of you old enough to remember, think back to the mid-1970s, when the Sears Die Hard was advertised as a "premium" battery. Remember their TV commercial, where they (supposedly) parked a Chevrolet Chevelle in some cold, desolate area in the fall, allegedly left it there, unattended, for the entire winter, then came back in the spring, and the car fired right up? Keep in mind, that was a 1975-76 Chevelle, a car with NO electronic gizmos that would create a parasitic current draw. Therefore, the car just sat there, in a stable, electronically speaking, state. You could NEVER try that test, anymore, with a late model vehicle.....
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