Unable to charge at supercharger

[J-a-x]

I drive a model Y which is just under a year old.

I was out on a ski trip today, 150 miles from home with 15% battery remaining and I stopped at a supercharger like I do every few weeks. Never had an issue with superchargers until now. Everything was fine for the first 5% charge, then my car stopped charging ant 20% and I was unable to start supercharging again. My car gives me errors like “Supercharger reports an error” and “Unable to charge” without too much information. Once it also gave an error about the charge port not latching properly even though I checked and it was clearly latched properly, but strangely that message only appeared once throughout this process.

I called Tesla support and they were unable to figure it out on the phone. They didn’t see any diagnostics apart from what I could see myself.

• They told me to clean the charging port and cable but unsurprisingly that didn’t do anything.
• They said to Try a different charging stall which didnt make a difference. I tried 5 different stalls. Everyone else at this supercharger had no issues.
• They said to try a 150 kW supercharger (the initial one was 250 kW) and I had the same issue there.
• I tried rebooting my car, both a soft reboot (holding the scroll wheels) and a “Power Off via Safety menu and wait 2 minutes” reboot and neither did anything.

Out of about 20 attempts to supercharge today one of them randomly worked for about 5 minutes and gave me enough range to get home then it also stopped, and after that none of my supercharging attempts have succeeded. Nothing was different that one time that it worked very briefly. I was billed for that brief charge Which I think shows its not a credit card issue.

The rep on the phone scheduled me a service appointment but the next service appointment is in 1.5 weeks. Nothing sooner.

I did try a level-2 charge and it worked fine, so this seem to be purely a DC fast charge issue.

Has anybody seen any similar issues? Any more troubleshooting steps for me to try? Or am I just out of luck and unable to go on any more trips that would require a supercharge until after my service appointment weeks from now (Or put up with 8 hour L2 charges, yikes)…

 

[Supcom]

I drive a model Y which is just under a year old.

I was out on a ski trip today, 150 miles from home with 15% battery remaining and I stopped at a supercharger like I do every few weeks. Never had an issue with superchargers until now. Everything was fine for the first 5% charge, then my car stopped charging ant 20% and I was unable to start supercharging again. My car gives me errors like “Supercharger reports an error” and “Unable to charge” without too much information. Once it also gave an error about the charge port not latching properly even though I checked and it was clearly latched properly, but strangely that message only appeared once throughout this process.

I called Tesla support and they were unable to figure it out on the phone. They didn’t see any diagnostics apart from what I could see myself.

• They told me to clean the charging port and cable but unsurprisingly that didn’t do anything.
• They said to Try a different charging stall which didnt make a difference. I tried 5 different stalls. Everyone else at this supercharger had no issues.
• They said to try a 150 kW supercharger (the initial one was 250 kW) and I had the same issue there.
• I tried rebooting my car, both a soft reboot (holding the scroll wheels) and a “Power Off via Safety menu and wait 2 minutes” reboot and neither did anything.

Out of about 20 attempts to supercharge today one of them randomly worked for about 5 minutes and gave me enough range to get home then it also stopped, and after that none of my supercharging attempts have succeeded. Nothing was different that one time that it worked very briefly. I was billed for that brief charge Which I think shows its not a credit card issue.

The rep on the phone scheduled me a service appointment but the next service appointment is in 1.5 weeks. Nothing sooner.

I did try a level-2 charge and it worked fine, so this seem to be purely a DC fast charge issue.

Has anybody seen any similar issues? Any more troubleshooting steps for me to try? Or am I just out of luck and unable to go on any more trips that would require a supercharge until after my service appointment weeks from now (Or put up with 8 hour L2 charges, yikes)…

If it was me, I would not get out of range of home (or another L2 charger) until the issue is resolved.

I'm assuming that you have no issues with charging at home on an L2 charger. It's possible that you have an issue with the charge module not successfully communicating with the supercharger. In addition to authentication, the SC relies on the car telling it how much current it wants to receive. It's possible that a bad charging module, or a poor connection between it and the charging outlet is making that communication unreliable.

If the communication is unreliable, your L2 charger may still work because it may act like a J1772 adapter is being used and relying on the simpler communication method.

 

[J-a-x]

Yeah that sounds about right - not going too far. Guess I gotta say goodbye to my ski trip plans this weekend.

Interesting theory about the communications between the car and supercharger. I hadn't thought of that. You'd think there would be more descriptive error messages or remote diagnostics to make it more certain of what was going on. The best the Tesla phone rep could tell me was to reboot and try to clean the charge port/cable.

I'm kind of bummed I have to wait a whole week to have someone look at it and then who knows how long until I get it back...

 

[Supcom]

Yeah that sounds about right - not going too far. Guess I gotta say goodbye to my ski trip plans this weekend.

Interesting theory about the communications between the car and supercharger. I hadn't thought of that. You'd think there would be more descriptive error messages or remote diagnostics to make it more certain of what was going on. The best the Tesla phone rep could tell me was to reboot and try to clean the charge port/cable.

I'm kind of bummed I have to wait a whole week to have someone look at it and then who knows how long until I get it back...

Maybe you can find a place to stay on your ski trip that has L2 EV charging?

If you hadn't done so, you might use the "secret" Service Mode to check error messages there. The car stores lower level messages that are not displayed at the normal user level. Most of these can be somewhat cryptic and not all indicate a real issue. But, it's worth checking. Tesla will likely access these remotely in preparation for your service.

Go to the Software screen, touch the car's model name and hold for about 5 seconds. You should get a password prompt. Enter 'service' for the password.

 

[J-a-x]

Maybe you can find a place to stay on your ski trip that has L2 EV charging?

If you hadn't done so, you might use the "secret" Service Mode to check error messages there. The car stores lower level messages that are not displayed at the normal user level. Most of these can be somewhat cryptic and not all indicate a real issue. But, it's worth checking. Tesla will likely access these remotely in preparation for your service.

Go to the Software screen, touch the car's model name and hold for about 5 seconds. You should get a password prompt. Enter 'service' for the password.

I was poking around in service mode when I was stuck at the supercharger but I didnt' see any messages. Maybe I didn't look in the right place? I was looking at temperatures, voltages, and other things but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

My usual ski plan is a day trip on the weekend. What I do is this: leave home in the morning with 80-90% charge, ski at a place with no charge infrastructure, hit up a supercharger for 15 min on the way home at a rest stop, and eat dinner at home. Without the supercharger I can't do it. There's no L2 where I ski and I don't wanna pay for a hotel. I could go out to dinner somewhere with an L2 on the way home and take it slow possibly, but sure is less convenient to not be able to fast charge once per week.

 

[RayK]

Were it me, and I believe your Y is new enough to support it, I'd try to see if using a CCS adapter works. You can check your car's Software/Additional Information section to see if CCS is enabled. Adapter is $250 from Tesla Store but I believe that functionally equivalent versions can be had for around $100.

edit: I'd also first check to see if there's CCS charging equipment around the area you travel. Check with PlugShare for locations (use filters to weed out non CCS connectors).

 

[J-a-x]

I do have a CCS adapter but there are no convenient CCS charging stations around here. I do use it sometimes on longer road trips when I can find a convenient CCS but my guess is that if DC charging hardware is defective, it won't charge at Superchargers or CCS...

 

[RayK]

Status of CCS charging (works or doesn't) would be a useful data point in troubleshooting your charging issue.

 

[J-a-x]

Status of CCS charging (works or doesn't) would be a useful data point in troubleshooting your charging issue.

Agreed.

 

[Supcom]

If there is a supercharger near home, you might try that, in case there was an issue with the site you were at.

I had an issue with the Armore, OK SC site last summer. I plugged in, but got a message almost immediately that supercharging stopped. While I was on the phone with Tesla supercharging support trying to find a solution, the charger suddenly started charging, though slower than it should have. It took a while, but I was able to get my charging done. However, Tesla support had no clue what was going on and even suggested I look for someplace I could do some L2 charging!

In any event, it might be worth trying another SC site, if that's feasible.

 

[J-a-x]

If there is a supercharger near home, you might try that, in case there was an issue with the site you were at.

I had an issue with the Armore, OK SC site last summer. I plugged in, but got a message almost immediately that supercharging stopped. While I was on the phone with Tesla supercharging support trying to find a solution, the charger suddenly started charging, though slower than it should have. It took a while, but I was able to get my charging done. However, Tesla support had no clue what was going on and even suggested I look for someplace I could do some L2 charging!

In any event, it might be worth trying another SC site, if that's feasible.

I tried 2 supercharger locations (one 150 kW and one 250 kW) and tried 4 different bays at each location...

 

[J-a-x]

I had an appointment scheduled for next week at the local Tesla Service Center here in Boston. This morning they texted me saying they don't have onsite supercharging for diagnostic purposes. They told me I should reschedule as to not waste my time, but it's unclear to me which locations do have onsite supercharging for diagnostic purposes. Kind of frustrating.

I found a different location that had a sooner appointment tomorrow (which works for me) and scheduled there but they also said they don't have onsite supercharging (but they do have one 10 minutes away), so not sure if its a bad idea to go with that one or not. They were not as dismissive as the first location but they are 50 miles further away and it could be a real pain if they don't offer me a loaner.

 

[KJSS4]

I had an appointment scheduled for next week at the local Tesla Service Center here in Boston. This morning they texted me saying they don't have onsite supercharging for diagnostic purposes. They told me I should reschedule as to not waste my time, but it's unclear to me which locations do have onsite supercharging for diagnostic purposes. Kind of frustrating.

I found a different location that had a sooner appointment tomorrow (which works for me) and scheduled there but they also said they don't have onsite supercharging (but they do have one 10 minutes away), so not sure if its a bad idea to go with that one or not. They were not as dismissive as the first location but they are 50 miles further away and it could be a real pain if they don't offer me a loaner.

You ever find the issue?

 

[J-a-x]

Yep!

The service center ended up replacing the high voltage contactor. After that it was as good as new. The service center quoted me as same-day repair, but then actually took a week which was a bit annoying because I didn’t get a loaner and it was hard to plan around but ultimately I got my car back and all is good. The actual time my car spent inside the shop was only three or four hours (it was in the lot the rest of the time waiting) so I imagine the actual repair was pretty quick. It was just a matter of getting it to a free technician and getting the part. I wish Tesla service did a better job of scheduling the repair work when they knew there was a technician and part available so you wouldn’t have to drop your car off and leave it for a week for a 3 hr job.

 

[Allx]

Just had this happen to me on a road trip - sure seems like HV contactors (L2 works at service center where I was towed ). Sure changes a trip outlook fast … good thing it wasn’t winter. I’d hate to have this happen at -20.

 

[J-a-x]

Just had this happen to me on a road trip - sure seems like HV contactors (L2 works at service center where I was towed ). Sure changes a trip outlook fast … good thing it wasn’t winter. I’d hate to have this happen at -20.

I hope this is rare and we're the outliers because yeah I'd think twice about going on a road trip if this was likely to happen. I wish there was more insight into whether its the type of part that wears out every 20k miles or whether there was some manufacturing defect that the fix will permanently solve (I think its the latter).

 

[Allx]

I hope this is rare and we're the outliers because yeah I'd think twice about going on a road trip if this was likely to happen. I wish there was more insight into whether its the type of part that wears out every 20k miles or whether there was some manufacturing defect that the fix will permanently solve (I think its the latter).

Yeah , seriously , I’m about to recommend friends do it preemptively if the drive much in real winter temperatures - could be a hazard. Mind my asking what mileage you had and supercharging frequency ? I’m at 68k miles and 90% supercharging . Maybe it’s just wear and tear ?

 

[J-a-x]

Yeah , seriously , I’m about to recommend friends do it preemptively if the drive much in real winter temperatures - could be a hazard. Mind my asking what mileage you had and supercharging frequency ? I’m at 68k miles and 90% supercharging . Maybe it’s just wear and tear ?

My contractor gave out after about 6 months, 15k miles, and roughly 35% of my energy has come from superchargers. So nothing about my usage stats suggestions there was a significant amount of wear and tear on my car.

 

[Allx]

My contractor gave out after about 6 months, 15k miles, and roughly 35% of my energy has come from superchargers. So nothing about my usage stats suggestions there was a significant amount of wear and tear on my car.

True, that should be well below any thresholds. I can see that mine would go but your usage seems quite typical and 15k miles is barely broken in…

 

[Allx]

For those interested , this looks to be the procedure (removal of the HV battery is required). I guess that explains the 700$ ish price (not counting the 300$ towing) - 2h job, 1h diag. , 100$ part