No, all Bruno and most other stairlifts that I am aware of operate using a trickle charger that turns itself off when the batteries are charged. Therefore they pull very little electric. If you unplug the lift the machine will beep and the batteries will eventually die. If you unplug the stair lift and turn it off, the batteries will still discharge because of the parasitic drain– that is when the machine still slowly drains the batteries even if it is off.