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HELP! Model S Won’t Charge at Supercharger
- Thread starter smb4ua
- Start date
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
The charger in the car is responsible for controlling the supercharging session. It also contains the relay/switching electronics to bridge the DC bus to the charging port inlet.
Lots of threads on this... not a particularly common failure, but it does happen. The fix is to replace the charger.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
This is quite simply not true. Not needing to do current conversion is not the same thing as “has nothing to do with”.
On the older Teslas the high voltage junction block and onboard AC/DC charger were separate. Later revisions combined both of those duties into the onboard charger. So if you have a supercharging fault it is possible the onboard charger needs to be replaced. We had a local Tesla owner have an issue like this on her X and I was able to find a thread about this. Lo and behold the onboard charger had failed.
Does anybody call Tesla before posting? They can access your car and tell you whats wrong in many cases.
The same thing happened to me last December. You have a problem with the master charger. You can charge on level 2, but not level 3 DC. It took them 2 days to get the parts after they completed the diagnosis. The invoice said the master charger was replaced. Luckily, mine was repaired under warranty.
Someone mentioned that the problem can be diagnosed remotely. That might be true in many cases, but I spent over an hour on the phone and they told me that there was a problem, but couldn’t confirm the cause of the problem. They finally suggested I try a level 2 charger and that did work. It took the service center more than a day and replacing a part before they made the final diagnosis. It took another two days to get the new master charger.
Someone mentioned that the problem can be diagnosed remotely. That might be true in many cases, but I spent over an hour on the phone and they told me that there was a problem, but couldn’t confirm the cause of the problem. They finally suggested I try a level 2 charger and that did work. It took the service center more than a day and replacing a part before they made the final diagnosis. It took another two days to get the new master charger.
What your missing is that when you Supercharge the charger controls everything, and part of that is that it bridges the charge port to the HV DC bus. That means that the AC input on the charger is being feed 350-400v DC. If there is a failure in the AC section of the charger that can prevent Supercharging. For instance if a component fails the isolation check at 400v DC, but works fine with AC.
When you call roadside, you get a tech that says HV voltage error recorded. They asked me to check other SC at same site, stayed on the phone as I drove to next SC, and it failed to charge at both, drove to Napa while still on with service and L2 destination charger worked.
On board HV Charger was replaced. I.e. the onboard charger. Let me find the invoice...onboard charger replaced
On board HV Charger was replaced. I.e. the onboard charger. Let me find the invoice...onboard charger replaced
CraZ8
Member
I had the exact same problem with my P85DL over the last two months. Would supercharge on some locations but not others. Would indicate starting to charge then charge stopped then would cycle again. Took it in to service. They said it was a bug in some older firmware. After the diagnosis and update have not had a problem
Update: This may be the exact thing wrong with mine. Saturday night I’d sat at a bar for 4 hours til I got enough juice from a regular charger to get me home. I’d resigned myself mentally that I was going to be out $2k most likely. Well, I just went to the supercharger in downtown Birmingham to test it out, and it’s working fine here! Thanks everyone for the tips and comments.
CraZ8
Member
Your costs may vary but they charged me $83. However getting some one from service to call when I was having the problem is impossible. When I was at the supercharger I resorted to calling sales where you could get a human and asked them PLEASE go over to service, have them call me and run a diagnostic on my car as I’m at the supercharger now and am having this same problem. They told me repeatedly I was next in que and some one would be calling shortly. I gave up after 3 hours and drove home as I had just enough charge. Service is Tesla’s biggest failing I fear. What would have been a 15 minute diagnosis and fix right there and then turned into me making an appointment, waiting a couple weeks to get a loaner driving 50 minutes each way for them to tell me yeah it’s fixed with this firmware update, it’s was a bug
CraZ8
Member
They just downloaded a patch on some buggy firmware. They said they had trouble on a number of cars like this. Not a hardware problem
Unless I misunderstand the situation, this does not apply. He is at a Supercharger which bypasses onboard charger unless I've missed something the past 3 years.
You have missed something: It's possible for the onboard charger to fail in such a way that Supercharging fails yet charging from the mobile connector (or wall connector) succeeds. The exact same thing happened to my S and it surprised me when the SC told me that the problem was the onboard charger. $2000 later I was Supercharging again.
dbldwn02
Active Member
99% chance this only happened because you arrived with less than 5% charge. I drove all the way from Chicago to Colorado Springs one year and I arrived at my last supercharger with about 3% of charge. It was a long leg. I plugged into all 6 different chargers and even watched a Model X come in and charge next to me. I called Tesla. They said to just leave it plugged in. After about 30-45 minutes, the charger kicked in. It's never happened since but I also never went below 5% again. Why it does this? I have no clue. Wish it would at least alert you that everything is ok and that its just taking it's sweet ass time getting started.
supercharging does not use the onboard charger!
Last edited:
dbldwn02
Active Member
The only way we can be 100% sure is for someone to disconnect their onboard charger and then go supercharge. *Not It*
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