Does everyone have trouble opening their charge port door?

Sorry to hear you're having trouble with it, but I've never had any issues with mine. It opens right after I push the button, whether I'm at home or at a supercharger.

I have read of some problems with glue oozing to magnet.

Had this problem yesterday with my home charger. I pushed button nothing happened. Pressed again multiple times, nothing. Stood there for a minute, staring at the charger, the car, trying to think of next logical steps, suddenly charge door opened.

It was like the computer was locked up, had to finish some process, then got to its backlog of tasks...

I've never had any problems with the door opening. I have been to a supercharger where the button on the cable didn't work, so I had to open the charge port from the touchscreen.

No. Weird.

Do you hear the click as if the computer is unlocking it, and it doesn't correctly open for some reason, or does everybody seem to be saladman's experience where it seems that the computer isn't sending the unlock command?

Knowing if these are the old-style open-only ports or the new fully actuated self-closing ports might be interesting too. FW revision is probably useful as well.

Mine has started doing this recently. I haven't done any controlled experiments but I think it's happening only at home and not at any Superchargers. This suggests that my problem might be my HPWC wand's transmitter. I'm going to break out my mobile charger this weekend and do some side by side comparison to see if it's my HPWC or my car. I'm not hearing any kind of "click," which I interpret to mean that my particular problem is not a stuck magnet or door. When the failure to open occurs, the port seems like it's not even trying to open.

saladman said:

Had this problem yesterday with my home charger. I pushed button nothing happened. Pressed again multiple times, nothing. Stood there for a minute, staring at the charger, the car, trying to think of next logical steps, suddenly charge door opened.

It was like the computer was locked up, had to finish some process, then got to its backlog of tasks...

Click to expand...

In that situation, I wonder if it would respond to the FOB any better?

Without asking them to, when I went in for my warranty motor work, my charge port door assy was completely replaced. Someone must have seen something I didnt. From the invoice:

Concern: Technician reports: Charge port door intermittently fails to open


Corrections: Door - Charge Port - Non-Motorized (Remove and Replace)


During non-related repairs the charge port door pin loosened causing the door not to open.


Replaced the charge port door and re-aligned the position to keep from interfering with


the body. Tested the function of the charge port door by opening and closing.

Click to expand...

the newer self closing door can be opened just by pushing on the door itself.

Never had mine even hesitate to not open instantly.

I had this problem recently and was able to get around it by gently pulling on the charge port door while simultaneously pressing the button to open it. The problem fortunately hasn't happened since.

An alternate method might be to push on the hinge side of the door while simultaneously pressing the button on the charge connector or pressing and holding the trunk button on the key.

Hope this helps!

I had trouble with an older cable on my HPWC where it would take several presses and often holding the handle over the rear glass near the sensor to get it to open. Tesla replaced my cable and for a couple of weeks it worked amazingly well. But over the past few months it seems like things are going back to their old habits and it takes a few presses.

That said, I don't know why you'd wait 5 minutes, just use the control panel on the touch screen to open the door if the button on the charger handle isn't working.

My car has had intermittent problems opening the chargeport door. There isn't any rhyme and reason to it though. But I have seen it on two other danish cars so far.

There seems to be a problem with the EU chargeports.

jcaspar said:

Never had mine even hesitate to not open instantly.

Click to expand...

Me neither... except in the winter when it sometimes freezes. I just use a credit card to "help" it open as I push the button when it's iced up. But the release happens the instant I hit the button.

I just had this problem on Wednesday. Panicked a bit and went back to the touchscreen to unlock/open a few times, finally worked when I closed the driver door. Last night was fine.

Yep!
About half the time the port opens when commanded from the cable, the other half you need to manually open the charge port door.
When it works it seems to function normally for a number of times before it quits and you manually open the door.

mwulff said:

My car has had intermittent problems opening the chargeport door. There isn't any rhyme and reason to it though. But I have seen it on two other danish cars so far.

There seems to be a problem with the EU chargeports.

Click to expand...

From time to time it seems to affect amost all of us, I think. It has never been an unsurmountable problem for me, but is a nagging issue. I ignore it, basically.

I had this problem two days after I got the car. In the rain, at night, at my first supercharger on my first road-trip. The car was clearly getting the signal, I could hear the lock clicking.

Tesla support suggested that I press on the far-rear side of the charging door, past the hinge point, as I push the charger button. Aster a few tries, that worked. (They also suggested I could wedge something thin in and pry it open after the click.)

After I got back to town, they did a mechanical adjustment and I haven't had the problem again.

My charge port door rarely opens on command, even though I can clearly hear a click indicating that it's trying to open. The first time it happened was at home, and I just waited a couple hours and tried again, and it worked fine. When it happened again just before a road trip, I called Tesla, and they gave me a workaround - hit the back edge of the charge port door with the bottom of your fist repeatedly and with increasing force. That works well enough to get the door open. Tesla told me to clean the magnets, since this is usually caused by some sticky gunk getting on there, but cleaning it didn't fix the problem for me, and there is no gunk whatsoever. This has been happening now for about 3 months, on a 4 month old car. Eventually I'll take it in for service to fix it, but so far I'm getting by with the workaround so it isn't a top priority.