2 Teslas Disabled ? by HPWC

[rallykeeper]

Hopefully that got someone's attention.

I'm looking for the collective wisdom of the interwebs to see if you have ever faced this issue before.

Here's the quick and dirty:

Monday Night: Plugged Model X into HPWC (second generation). A couple hours after plugging in, but before timed charging began, car shut down entirely (according to logs). It never charged.

Tuesday Morning: Found "bricked" Model X in driveway, called service, they sent out a roadside battery jumpstart to boot the car up and the Model X went off to service. Diagnosis is still underway.

Wednesday Night: Plugged Model S into HPWC. Let's see if you can guess what happened.... That's right, a couple hours after plugging in, but before timed charging began, car shut down entirely (according to logs). It never charged.

This morning: Found "bricked" Model S in driveway, called service and they are sending out a roadside battery jumpstart to boot the car up and tow the car in. Since I'm currently twiddling my thumbs for a second time this week, I figured I'd turn to you all...

Occam's Razor says that this the HPWC must be a factor, right? Yet, there are no error logs about HPWC and I have a plain old solid green light.

Anyone encounter this or something similar? (Even with just one Tesla. )

I trust my service center on this, but would like to get some insight in case there's some detail I haven't told them that could help.



And, for the trolls, shorts, unhelpful commenters, etc. Please leave me alone. I've been part of this beta test of owning a Tesla for far longer than almost all of you and am intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations of these revolutionary cars. Software-based electric cars are our future, and Tesla will in all likelihood prevail.

 

[jboy210]

Don't forget to include your power company as a possible culprit. you know, the guys that start massive forest fires and want us rate payers to pay for their fines and claims. A surge could have do something bad to your HPWC.

 

[P85_DA]

And, for the trolls, shorts, unhelpful commenters, etc. Please leave me alone. I've been part of this beta test of owning a Tesla for far longer than almost all of you and am intimately familiar with the t

Lol so have a lot of us and this didn’t happen I don’t know purpose of coming to forum as no one here can diagnos your car ..and a quick search can check if this is a common occurrence

 

[SpudLime]

Since you are mentioning you are seeing the logs. Do you have a 3rd party giving you diagnosis or is that what Tesla told you? If you have 3rd party, possible this is the cause?

 

[Bogobec]

I have seen some post about poor wifi connectivity that would made an update take a lot of time to download. Sometime messing up with the car. Maybe this is what caused the 12v battery drain? Do you see software update activity in your logs?

 

[Electroman]

Click-bait titles like this, 'Bricked', should be a non-negotiable policy in this forum with a firm 'NO'. It should have been appropriately titled as, "Charging failed, both Model X and S completely shutdown".

I know OP does not have the privs to change the title now, but hopefully a mod can do that.

 

[rallykeeper]

Since you are mentioning you are seeing the logs. Do you have a 3rd party giving you diagnosis or is that what Tesla told you? If you have 3rd party, possible this is the cause?

Thanks for the question.

No third party software. Tesla has told me about the log information. (I really am pretty friendly with my SC -- and they are very good at this and incredibly transparent.)

What's helpful about this forum is that we can sometimes share troubleshooting issues more broadly and quickly than what typically occurs inside of Tesla. Over the years, TMC members have found a lot of bugs before Tesla fully acknowledged them or even before they made their way up the chain from one SC and back down the chain to all service centers.

If anyone has had an HPWC cause their Tesla to shut down (and Tesla was able to conclude that), I'd really appreciate hearing about it. Particularly, if there weren't any HPWC error lights or other car error logs that pointed to the HPWC.

I've never heard of that -- and I don't see that in any obvious search results.

 

[rallykeeper]

I have seen some post about poor wifi connectivity that would made an update take a lot of time to download. Sometime messing up with the car. Maybe this is what caused the 12v battery drain? Do you see software update activity in your logs?

Interesting question. I will ask about software updates -- I don't have access to logs, but that could be an issue. Software updates often come in clusters to my 2 cars so that could explain the timing coincidence.

I don't usually have poor WiFi connectivity (router is almost on top of the car), but you never know.

 

[TexasEV]

As you are a long time owner, you should know better than to use the term “bricked” in this situation.

 

[rallykeeper]

If a Mod wants to change the title, that's fine. I don't want to get into an argument about semantics.

I thought long and hard about using the term -- and intentionally put it in quotes.

Admittedly, I have may have been rash since I've had 2 non-functioning cars 2 times this week.

 

[Yinn]

Are the two cars close in age and mileage?

 

[rallykeeper]

Are the two cars close in age and mileage?

Yes. Both 2017's (one Model X and one Model S).

Both are at around 15,000 miles. Both have had their 1 year service.

As an update, I tested out my HPWC over the weekend on a loaner S (a 2018). It worked just fine.

I'm starting to lean toward it all being a completely random (and very unlucky) coincidence.

Of course, no diagnosis on either car yet -- service center seems like it's pretty backed up with deliveries right now....

 

[Yinn]

Yes. Both 2017's (one Model X and one Model S).

Both are at around 15,000 miles. Both have had their 1 year service.

As an update, I tested out my HPWC over the weekend on a loaner S (a 2018). It worked just fine.

I'm starting to lean toward it all being a completely random (and very unlucky) coincidence.

Of course, no diagnosis on either car yet -- service center seems like it's pretty backed up with deliveries right now....

Could be and most likely the case. But sounds like you’ll need a friendly and brave volunteer with a 2017 TESLA w/15,000 miles to be sure. You know..for science.

 

[Anzir]

Man, lots of folks who get all scrambled over a simple word. If my X didn't respond to anything I wouldn't be against calling it a brick. OP, hope this gets resolved quickly. Curious to see what it is.

 

[Electroman]

over a simple word

That simple word at one point when Tesla was at its infancy, was used effectively by the haters to spread FUD.

 

[mxnym]

That simple word at one point when Tesla was at its infancy, was used effectively by the haters to spread FUD.

Haters shouldn't be able to ruin a language one word at a time. Any "bricked" device could likely be fixed with the appropriate care, so I would also argue the word was appropriate. Perhaps it could have been used with "temporarily" as an adjective, but I wouldn't even insist on that, as I'm not a big fan of the PC culture being force on everyone because a few people want extra attention.

 

[Saghost]

Very odd. HPWCs conform to J1772 charging protocols - they only deliver power to the car when the car pulls down the pilot circuit to ask for it.

A car that's plugged in and not charging shouldn't have any interaction with the HPWC except reading a couple low voltage pins - certainly nothing that should be able to kill the car.

As you say, it seems like quite a coincidence if the HPWC isn't involved, but I'm having trouble seeing how even a malfunctioning HPWC should be able to kill a car before it tries to start charging.

Once the car is charging, a voltage surge along the main power lines can presumably damage the charger module, but even that shouldn't kill the car as a whole.

"Dead" Teslas generally have drained 12V batteries, which shouldn't be an outcome of any charging behavior since the 12V SoC is managed by a dc dc converter under the control of the boss computer independent of any charging operation.

 

[Yinn]

Very odd. HPWCs conform to J1772 charging protocols - they only deliver power to the car when the car pulls down the pilot circuit to ask for it.

A car that's plugged in and not charging shouldn't have any interaction with the HPWC except reading a couple low voltage pins - certainly nothing that should be able to kill the car.

As you say, it seems like quite a coincidence if the HPWC isn't involved, but I'm having trouble seeing how even a malfunctioning HPWC should be able to kill a car before it tries to start charging.

Once the car is charging, a voltage surge along the main power lines can presumably damage the charger module, but even that shouldn't kill the car as a whole.

"Dead" Teslas generally have drained 12V batteries, which shouldn't be an outcome of any charging behavior since the 12V SoC is managed by a dc dc converter under the control of the boss computer independent of any charging operation.

One thing I can think of - speculative. The car has the ability to download firmware for the HPWC. It then updates the HPWC when it is plugged in. During this time, the car stays “On” via the 12v but doesn’t actively charge.

Is it possible the update got stuck (happens on the car themselves occasionally) which led to the car staying on 12v and draining the battery?

 

[Saghost]

One thing I can think of - speculative. The car has the ability to download firmware for the HPWC. It then updates the HPWC when it is plugged in. During this time, the car stays “On” via the 12v but doesn’t actively charge.

Is it possible the update got stuck (happens on the car themselves occasionally) which led to the car staying on 12v and draining the battery?

Interesting theory. I'm not sure why the car wouldn't have pulled the power it needed from the high voltage side in that case, though - presumably it can't drain the big battery very much parked without HVAC no matter how hard the computers are working.

 

[Yinn]

Interesting theory. I'm not sure why the car wouldn't have pulled the power it needed from the high voltage side in that case, though - presumably it can't drain the big battery very much parked without HVAC no matter how hard the computers are working.

Well the HVAC theoretically could just kick on. When it gets hot outside, my car turns on the HVAC to cool the interior and battery. We also know that the 12v is designed to be charged by the big battery under normal driving conditions.

With that said, I would assume that if it was able to pull a steady 12v from the big battery itself; an additional 12v battery wouldn't have been needed in the first place.