Orange light: Unable to Supercharge

[nhajjar]

I wanted to post this experience here for others that might experience a similar problem. I guarantee other drivers will have like issues in the future, will do a search, and find this thread.

On a road trip (of course!), my 2012 P85 (#1458) ran into an issue where it showed an orange light around the port, refused to Supercharge and returned an error that said that the port could not latch properly. After this, it successfully charged at 2 public L2 chargers using the J-plug adapter (SemaConnect and ChargePoint), but repeatedly showed flashing orange lights at 2 different HPWC Tesla Destination Chargers. At the HPWCs, it seemed to "connect", but at an extremely slow speed --- less than a mile an hour -- and still flashed orange the entire time. As we limped home using L2, we continued to try Superchargers, with no luck.

Back home, an absolutely AWESOME Tesla Mobile Service Tech, Mike Creer, came by my house on appointment to check things out. His hunch was that it was a port issue, but found the problem with the HPWC strange, and wasn't positive. We drove out to a close by Supercharge together, and of course, the car connected without a problem for the first time since the original issue. So we held off on the port replacement until more failures occurred. There WAS a chance that there was a problem with the charging system itself (thousands), a junction box (also expensive), and he wanted more data before making the call. The port is not a cheap replacement (hundreds), and if it turned out to be something else and a port replacement did not solve the problem, it would have been a waste.

Jump to the last 2 days. Yesterday the car showed the dreaded orange light again at an urban Supercharger. By jiggling the connector (to an unusual/atypical degree), it eventually engaged. Then today, at a regular Supercharger, we could not get the connector out of the port. Long story short it was eventually freed (a bunch of pushing and pulling), and was clear: the problem was the port.

So the port will be replaced tomorrow, and the "good news" is that it is the least costly fix to the problem. Bottom line is this: port issues do not always present themselves in an obvious way, as my case shows. Why the J Plug adapter worked and the HPWC didn't is anyone's guess. If I learn anything more after we take the old port out, I will post an addendum.

 

[Yurand]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

My friend had a similar problem on a short road trip a couple months ago with his Model X. It would not connect to different stalls at the supercharger. We tried connecting the UMC to a 120v outlet and it didn't work either. Thankfully, he had enough charge to get him to the Milwaukee service center and they replaced the charging port the following morning.

 

[H2oV]

I wanted to post this experience here for others that might experience a similar problem. I guarantee other drivers will have like issues in the future, will do a search, and find this thread.

On a road trip (of course!), my 2012 P85 (#1458) ran into an issue where it showed an orange light around the port, refused to Supercharge and returned an error that said that the port could not latch properly. After this, it successfully charged at 2 public L2 chargers using the J-plug adapter (SemaConnect and ChargePoint), but repeatedly showed flashing orange lights at 2 different HPWC Tesla Destination Chargers. At the HPWCs, it seemed to "connect", but at an extremely slow speed --- less than a mile an hour -- and still flashed orange the entire time. As we limped home using L2, we continued to try Superchargers, with no luck.

Back home, an absolutely AWESOME Tesla Mobile Service Tech, Mike Creer, came by my house on appointment to check things out. His hunch was that it was a port issue, but found the problem with the HPWC strange, and wasn't positive. We drove out to a close by Supercharge together, and of course, the car connected without a problem for the first time since the original issue. So we held off on the port replacement until more failures occurred. There WAS a chance that there was a problem with the charging system itself (thousands), a junction box (also expensive), and he wanted more data before making the call. The port is not a cheap replacement (hundreds), and if it turned out to be something else and a port replacement did not solve the problem, it would have been a waste.

Jump to the last 2 days. Yesterday the car showed the dreaded orange light again at an urban Supercharger. By jiggling the connector (to an unusual/atypical degree), it eventually engaged. Then today, at a regular Supercharger, we could not get the connector out of the port. Long story short it was eventually freed (a bunch of pushing and pulling), and was clear: the problem was the port.

So the port will be replaced tomorrow, and the "good news" is that it is the least costly fix to the problem. Bottom line is this: port issues do not always present themselves in an obvious way, as my case shows. Why the J Plug adapter worked and the HPWC didn't is anyone's guess. If I learn anything more after we take the old port out, I will post an addendum.

Same thing happened to me last Wednesday night during a road trip. I tried 4 different chargers and a destination charger. Nothing worked. Tried everything. Had to drive back 1.5 hours to pick up my Lexus and head back on the road. Extremely frustrated with my 2021 model 3. Having service to come check it out on Thursday.

 

[maximizese]

Having heard of various charging issues from folks on this forum, I got in the habit of testing our Supercharging capabilities the day before a road-trip just to lessen the chance of an inconvenient realization that our car won't charge as expected. After a couple of years, I just got complacent and decided it's not worth the time and planning for me to do this everytime. Fortunately for me, the one and only time I've seen the dreaded orange ring was at the Buttonwillow, Ca Supercharger site and the issue was one particular charging stall, not the car. However, my car does have an issue with the included Tesla mobile charging equipment. It seems the charging wand does not proper align to the prongs of the charger when left in its natural state. The wand has to be propped up about 5 degrees for the car to continue to charge. It's annoying and I'm planning to try to fix it one day, but the one time I've used it recently required me to setup a tripod to hold the wand at the right angle...lest I stand there hold it for hours on end.

Hope your issues are all resolved. It's frustrating when things aren't working properly.

 

[EVNoob]

I had this same thing happen on a long road trip just a week ago; we almost didn't make it home. We finally got some help from some Techs who happened to be working on the Supercharger in Flagstaff, AZ. My car is at the SC, and they tried it and of course it worked, so they want to close the ticket. I have supercharged over 50X and this orange ring connection error only happened for the first time last week. This is a deal breaker and needs a real solution.

 

[EVNoob]

I had this same thing happen on a long road trip just a week ago; we almost didn't make it home. We finally got some help from some Techs who happened to be working on the Supercharger in Flagstaff, AZ. My car is at the SC, and they tried it and of course it worked, so they want to close the ticket. I have supercharged over 50X and this orange ring connection error only happened for the first time last week. This is a deal breaker and needs a real solution.

Update: The Las Vegas Service Center could not duplicate the supercharging orange light error message, despite me having the error on multiple occasions during my road trip and needing to contact roadside assistance twice! I took the car to a supercharging station this morning, and again had the error message. I tried two different stalls at the supercharger station. I now resubmitted a service appointment to replace the charge port, and my appointment is over a month out. My car was recently in the service center for a week and the charge port was not replaced despite my pleas. I don't know if I can continue to be a Tesla customer, their under investment in service is appalling, and if Elon had my experience his head would explode.

 

[zeroemissions]

I wanted to post this experience here for others that might experience a similar problem. I guarantee other drivers will have like issues in the future, will do a search, and find this thread.

On a road trip (of course!), my 2012 P85 (#1458) ran into an issue where it showed an orange light around the port, refused to Supercharge and returned an error that said that the port could not latch properly. After this, it successfully charged at 2 public L2 chargers using the J-plug adapter (SemaConnect and ChargePoint), but repeatedly showed flashing orange lights at 2 different HPWC Tesla Destination Chargers. At the HPWCs, it seemed to "connect", but at an extremely slow speed --- less than a mile an hour -- and still flashed orange the entire time. As we limped home using L2, we continued to try Superchargers, with no luck.

Back home, an absolutely AWESOME Tesla Mobile Service Tech, Mike Creer, came by my house on appointment to check things out. His hunch was that it was a port issue, but found the problem with the HPWC strange, and wasn't positive. We drove out to a close by Supercharge together, and of course, the car connected without a problem for the first time since the original issue. So we held off on the port replacement until more failures occurred. There WAS a chance that there was a problem with the charging system itself (thousands), a junction box (also expensive), and he wanted more data before making the call. The port is not a cheap replacement (hundreds), and if it turned out to be something else and a port replacement did not solve the problem, it would have been a waste.

Jump to the last 2 days. Yesterday the car showed the dreaded orange light again at an urban Supercharger. By jiggling the connector (to an unusual/atypical degree), it eventually engaged. Then today, at a regular Supercharger, we could not get the connector out of the port. Long story short it was eventually freed (a bunch of pushing and pulling), and was clear: the problem was the port.

So the port will be replaced tomorrow, and the "good news" is that it is the least costly fix to the problem. Bottom line is this: port issues do not always present themselves in an obvious way, as my case shows. Why the J Plug adapter worked and the HPWC didn't is anyone's guess. If I learn anything more after we take the old port out, I will post an addendum.

I just experienced this at the super charging station with my 2017 S; I tried 2 stalls, reboot the, but I haven't tried the L2 charger using the J plug yet (tomorrow at work). Since your car was out of warranty (like mine), how much was the replacement cost and was it done at the service station or via mobile service tech? Thanks.

 

[KalJoMoS]

OP have unic model so the part would not be suitable for 2017 model. I had a chance to change the port for motorised version under warranty (2016 model S) and if remember correctly it was priced around €700-800, you need to include tax and labor amount.

 

[Bigjohn892]

I wanted to post this experience here for others that might experience a similar problem. I guarantee other drivers will have like issues in the future, will do a search, and find this thread.

On a road trip (of course!), my 2012 P85 (#1458) ran into an issue where it showed an orange light around the port, refused to Supercharge and returned an error that said that the port could not latch properly. After this, it successfully charged at 2 public L2 chargers using the J-plug adapter (SemaConnect and ChargePoint), but repeatedly showed flashing orange lights at 2 different HPWC Tesla Destination Chargers. At the HPWCs, it seemed to "connect", but at an extremely slow speed --- less than a mile an hour -- and still flashed orange the entire time. As we limped home using L2, we continued to try Superchargers, with no luck.

Back home, an absolutely AWESOME Tesla Mobile Service Tech, Mike Creer, came by my house on appointment to check things out. His hunch was that it was a port issue, but found the problem with the HPWC strange, and wasn't positive. We drove out to a close by Supercharge together, and of course, the car connected without a problem for the first time since the original issue. So we held off on the port replacement until more failures occurred. There WAS a chance that there was a problem with the charging system itself (thousands), a junction box (also expensive), and he wanted more data before making the call. The port is not a cheap replacement (hundreds), and if it turned out to be something else and a port replacement did not solve the problem, it would have been a waste.

Jump to the last 2 days. Yesterday the car showed the dreaded orange light again at an urban Supercharger. By jiggling the connector (to an unusual/atypical degree), it eventually engaged. Then today, at a regular Supercharger, we could not get the connector out of the port. Long story short it was eventually freed (a bunch of pushing and pulling), and was clear: the problem was the port.

So the port will be replaced tomorrow, and the "good news" is that it is the least costly fix to the problem. Bottom line is this: port issues do not always present themselves in an obvious way, as my case shows. Why the J Plug adapter worked and the HPWC didn't is anyone's guess. If I learn anything more after we take the old port out, I will post an addendum.

I had a similar problem with the charger at my house and it turner out to be a small bug had gotten into the charge port and was squashed almost flat but it wouldn't let the cable go the last millimeter or so to plug in correctly. Took forever to find.