Charging hose not releasing fom MX charging port.

[Burton]

"Wonder if throwing water on it might have helped, it seems to for dogs."

Last Friday night, drove to favorite superchargers, as we do every night. Started charging, and in usual amount of time, got message it was completed. But the charger would not release from vehicle's charging port!

Called Tesla road service, nice gal said they were closed for weekend, hoped to get someone there, maybe Monday. So leave car unattended, in parking lot, blocking a supercharger, for three days. Thanked her, said I would hang up and call back in, and maybe get someone that gave a damn.

Next person spent next FIVE HOURS, trying to trouble shoot, ultimately explaining how to download and summons an UBER (our first experience there also).

Getting home at three-thirty in the morning, we knew that Tesla service Rockville, Maryland, is five miles from our house, they work on Saturdays, only by appointment. After few hours home, dropping by, car/hose still frozen together, we drove to service center.

Now they have never allowed us into their building, because of virus. But after pounding on door, two men let me in, and after explaining that I was going to let everyone know about this situation, these two agreed to drive back to my car. They copied a few pages in the back.

Understand, these two gentlemen were from D.C. SALES office, because this was just after rioting in D.C., so they were closed. They both came to car, and pulled, and did everything that I had spent five hours doing the night before. Where was service?!? Where was supercharger maintenance? Oh yeah, it was the weekend. Better not plan on starting a vacation out of town during a weekend!!!

Another salesman, from yet another store, agreed to come out. Mind you, we bought both my Model X and my wife's Model Y, in March, when everything was shut down. We couldn't even look at a car, much less touch or drive one. So this guy was just being super nice, Saturday night, after work, on his way home.

After hours and hours, and several of us pulling, pulling the release cable, using the touch screen, the app, the key fob (hold truck button down for at least ten seconds), we were thinking that somehow the charging hose was fused to the car's charging port.

Then suddenly, Justin went flying backward. FREED!

We weren't going to drive and maybe need to charge it again. We went directly to the service center. Next day, guess the weekend was over, so they did something, kept car for two days, and it now works, I hope. No explanation as to what happened.

But better than when, on day five after delivery, got wiped out by a deer, and body shop had car for TWO MONTHS.

Hoping for better luck.

Anyone else have experience with superchargers, and/or weekend problems?

 

[user212_nr]

Started charging, and in usual amount of time, got message it was completed. But the charger would not release from vehicle's charging port!

Hoping for better luck.

Anyone else have experience with superchargers, and/or weekend problems?

There is an issue that people have on occasion reported, with the charge handle getting frozen into the charge port. Plastic contracts when it is cooled, and water expands into ice, so with some moisture on the handle or in the port, this can happen. Its a bit extreme though, in your case. Looking at DC weather, it looks like you are just straddling the freezing point, which can be the worst combination.

Its not a common issue anymore though, especially not at superchargers. The SC gets very hot which should melt the ice, but its always a good idea to set the charge limit at the SC higher than you need, so that it never "finishes" charging until you unplug it. Or if you are going to 100%, then show up at 99% in the cold.

Its a defect (possibly on your car only), but maybe it happened after charging finished and the system cooled down.

 

[ElectricOrgan]

Yeah, these are the sort of issues you don't hear about so much when talking about EVs. Tesla has some problems with their connectors. I have found Superchargers disabled a number of times (meaning more than three that I recall) because a bit of plastic sleeve from the car connector broke off in the hose connector. It's easy to fix if you have needle nose pliers handy! But it shouldn't happen. This should have been found and fixed in the early prototypes.

The cars are like this too. I have an X and every day I drive it is an exercise in dealing with the battle between innovation and just plain working well enough to get the job done. What's the expression we use in engineering? "Better is the enemy of good enough!"

I had the charger connector freeze in my car once, but only for a few minutes. I've read all the stuff in the manual and here about the various things that can go south and how to work around them. I had forgotten about the cable release in the trunk until now. That's like the release for the frunk that makes everybody's frunk unsafe for valuables. Then there is the emergency release for the rear doors behind the speaker grills. Do they really expect anyone to be able to release that in an accident? It wasn't an accident, but a friend was stuck in the back seat when the door wouldn't open. Fortunately there are some four ways to open the door and I finally found one that worked.

Sometimes I forget how many apologies have to be made for anyone to consider a Tesla to be a good car. There is a reason why they are at the bottom of the list for frequency of repairs. Literally at the bottom. I think they started out above Cadillac, but managed to find their way down.