Lyft driver charges Model 3 with a full charge everyday. Now “Unable to Charge” error

[Governator660]

I’m driving 60K miles per year and after 3 years I’m over 180K. A few months ago I got “Unable to Charge” error. I tried charging at home and at a Supercharger with no luck. The next day the error cleared after a software update. Weeks went by and then it happened again with the same outcome. My Model 3 has the extended range with has slowly declined from 360 miles to 310.

The error occurred again a week ago and the range was reduced to 25 by driving. I turned off everything hoping for another update which happened this morning. My car is charging again.

I made an appointment at Tesla when the error occurred the second time. Tesla diagnostics indicated my car needed a new battery for $12K. How can I do an update myself? It is obviously clearing something in the system when it updates.

I just got an ad from Tesla promoting the new Model 3 with an improved battery and charging which is not affected by frequent charging like I do.

 

[RayK]

You can do a software re-install in the service menu. That implies you can only reload the same version of software that you currently have and not anything "newer". I would try that first and see if it fixes your issue. You can also try a two-thumb scroll wheel reset, if you haven't tried that already.

ref: | Tesla

 

[MP3Mike]

Even if a reinstall clears the error, it will just come back. And eventually it will likely get bad enough that you won't be able drive it at all. That vehicle needs a new HV battery.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

How can I do an update myself?

This is unfortunately the cost of doing business and you seem to have gotten a bit unlucky. Cost adds 7 cents per mile to your vehicle running costs.

Not great, but a hazard of electric cars. I have no idea what the failure rate is - would be nice if Tesla published that info. It’s unfortunate that battery prices have not come down significantly - still very supply constrained I guess. It’s a lot of material, so you would think it’s never going to get down to less than $5k. $5k every couple hundred thousand miles seems more reasonable…