Problem using SuperCharger Tonight

breser · Sep 26, 2014

Went to the SuperCharger in Ellensburg, WA tonight to try one out. It wasn't a long trip, 65 miles there. Got there and pulled into the nose in spot. Put the cable in and the car showed an orange light around the charge port and the car said the cable wasn't plugged in all the way. However, the cable was clearly fully seated. Figured it was just broken so tried a different spot, that happened to be on the same converters. Still didn't work. Moved over one more and same thing.

So finally I call Tesla service. They have me try all sorts of things from closing the charge port and reopening to rebooting the center screen. Nothing worked. Finally he suggested I tried jiggling the charging cable around and playing with the button on top. Jiggled it around and finally got it to lock the cable in and start charging. He said they'd make a note in my service records and service would look into if there was a problem with my charge port.

Anyone else have a problem like this? I've never had any sort of problem using my HPWC at home so far. Just put it in and it just works.

breser · Sep 27, 2014

Well now it's happening at home. Something is apparently not right with my charge port.

LMB · Sep 27, 2014

(LMB spouse)

This happened to LMB's car last winter. It got more and more finicky. Tesla Service replaced the charge port and everything was fine. They said it happens to several cars last winter; probably due to icing on the connector or charge port causing damage during insertion. Now we try to thaw the car out before charging if it gets in an icy rain/snow situation.

breser · Sep 27, 2014

Well I can rule out ice or snow. It hasn't been below 60F here since I got the car on the 24th. It was a beautiful day (70F, clear skies) when I was at the supercharger.

Alysashley79 · Sep 27, 2014

Did they have you try pulling the yellow fuse from under the frunk? That's the "hard" reboot.

breser · Sep 27, 2014

Alysashley79 said:
Did they have you try pulling the yellow fuse from under the frunk? That's the "hard" reboot.

Nope. Just the long hold on the rollers. I think the problem is hardware since jiggling the plug around solves it. Car is going to go in for a steering wheel replacement (due to a cosmetic problem) once the part shows up, so I'll just have them look into it then unless it gets worse in the meantime.

mknox · Sep 29, 2014

breser said:
Anyone else have a problem like this? I've never had any sort of problem using my HPWC at home so far. Just put it in and it just works.

Yes, almost exactly as you describe. At Angola, IN, Mishawaka, IN and Aurora, IL Superchargers on a road trip from Toronto to Chicago. I had to futz around every time to get it to work. I had the Toronto SC look at it, but at the time there were no Canadian Superchargers to test it out on, and they couldn't find anything wrong. When the Toronto Supercharger opened, I went there and it worked perfectly the first time. Who knows?

jerry33 · Sep 29, 2014

mknox said:
Yes, almost exactly as you describe. At Angola, IN, Mishawaka, IN and Aurora, IL Superchargers on a road trip from Toronto to Chicago. I had to futz around every time to get it to work. I had the Toronto SC look at it, but at the time there were no Canadian Superchargers to test it out on, and they couldn't find anything wrong. When the Toronto Supercharger opened, I went there and it worked perfectly the first time. Who knows?

It sounds like a problem with tolerances. If you have a charge port on the large end of the tolerances and the SC has a plug on the small end, it might not seat well.

mknox · Sep 30, 2014

jerry33 said:
It sounds like a problem with tolerances. If you have a charge port on the large end of the tolerances and the SC has a plug on the small end, it might not seat well.

It sure seemed like that... or some sort of dirt inside, but I did check and it looked clean as a whistle to me. My car's charge port was replaced early on because I was having problems charging with my UMC. Since then, UMC, HPWC and J1772 adapter charging have been rock solid.

Atebit · Sep 30, 2014

I've had frequent finicky ness at the Newark DE SCs. The last time it happened I plugged in, got the rapidly flashing green light thinking all was well. Went into the rest area & looked at the app, which said it was not charging. I went out to the car to find the port happily flashing green but the app & dash showing not charging. I had to remove/insert the plug & this time I waited for charge to start ringing up on the dash before walking away. That was a weird one. I called Tesla Service about it, they claimed it was an SC-side issue not the car.

breser · Sep 30, 2014

Small update from me. We ended up going on a small trip to Olympia and went a tad further to the Centralia, WA supercharger. No problem charging there. Just straight worked.

Since my initial problem I've had the HPWC give me the orange light twice, but I'm not convinced that's the same problem. In Ellensburg, I most certainly had the plug in as far as it would go. The last HPWC issue I pushed on the plug again and it went in all the way. Which makes me doubt the first time I had an issue with the HPWC. I don't recall how sure I was it was in all the way, I do recall removing the plug before getting it to work.

I'm still going to say something when car goes in for the steering wheel swap.

UberEV1 · Oct 3, 2014

To Community: Similar thing happened this morning at home for the first time . . . after 14 months with no issues from the charge port, this morning I approached the car, the car unlocked and the charge port indicator was bright orange and the speedometer display had a warning that the charge cable was not fully plugged in. However, what makes this strange is that the car started charging at 3am as scheduled, charged from ~170 miles to 222 miles (charge limit set to 90%, which usually completes at 226 rated miles) and then the fault must have happened, perhaps around 5:00am. When I noticed it at 7:30am, I followed the screen directions, which called for unplugging and replugging the charge cable, and then everything worked fine at my usual 40amp charge rate.

So question is, why would it be fine for 2 hours and then all of a sudden trip out and show the orange error light? (I'm assuming there are no Gremlins in my garage playing with the cable in the middle of the night). I'll monitor this and see if it happens again, but curious if anyone else has seen a similar set of circumstances.

@breser - please keep us informed as well

SFOTurtle · Oct 19, 2014

UberEV1 said:
To Community: Similar thing happened this morning at home for the first time . . . after 14 months with no issues from the charge port, this morning I approached the car, the car unlocked and the charge port indicator was bright orange and the speedometer display had a warning that the charge cable was not fully plugged in. However, what makes this strange is that the car started charging at 3am as scheduled, charged from ~170 miles to 222 miles (charge limit set to 90%, which usually completes at 226 rated miles) and then the fault must have happened, perhaps around 5:00am. When I noticed it at 7:30am, I followed the screen directions, which called for unplugging and replugging the charge cable, and then everything worked fine at my usual 40amp charge rate.

So question is, why would it be fine for 2 hours and then all of a sudden trip out and show the orange error light? (I'm assuming there are no Gremlins in my garage playing with the cable in the middle of the night). I'll monitor this and see if it happens again, but curious if anyone else has seen a similar set of circumstances.

@breser - please keep us informed as well

I've been getting an error message while charging at my home over the past few weeks, and for the first time since I took delivery of MS in Feb. 2013, have been seeing an orange ring around the port after I plug in, just before going blue. I have never seen this orange before. This sounds like it could be a problem with the charge port or the UMC. I haven't noticed any problems with charging at work using Level II.

Update: I just read another thread that others have noticed this orange or yellow ring on the new 6.0 firmware. That is almost certainly the explanation for that. As to the error message throttling down the amps to 30 on my NEMA 14-50, that comes and goes. I switched the adapter back to the original I received from Tesla (I did not mail this back) and oddly enough, the error messages seem to have stopped.

breser · Oct 21, 2014

Got my car back today from the service center. They believe my charge port is fine. They're saying that newer charge ports have a smaller opening and that makes the plug harder to put in compared to older cars. In their experience my vehicle is consistent with other vehicles. I've seen other people since then talk about issues with the Ellensburg, WA supercharger so I'm convinced my problem is just a matter of the plug being a little bigger than others and the port being a little smaller.

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Problem using SuperCharger Tonight

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