P85D "Unable to Charge" at Supercharger

[GetAmped]

I took my P85D on its first road trip yesterday to visit a new Supercharger in Woodstock Ontario. I assured my Wife that everything would be fine and that I would be able to get there with my young Son as my Co-Pilot, charge quickly then return with no issues.

We arrived in Woodstock with less range then I needed to return home to find all 8 Supercharger stalls lit up welcoming me to pull in and charge. There were a couple of Police Cars there with the officers watching me and I carefully pulled in and plugged into one of the Suoerchargers. What followed was a comedy of me trying every Supercharger stall with no success. I swear the Police must have thought I was impaired or something...

I would get the flashing green charging light and my dash each time would display "Starting to Charge" followed by "Unable to Charge - Unplug and try again".

I finally gave up and called Tesla Road Side Assistance who connected to my car and said that they saw an unusual error message and had me reset the main display (did not work), followed by a "Power Recycling" which involved powering down the car twice (also did not work). Tesla then apologized and said that everything at the Supercharger location was showing as online but that I would have to take my car in for service and asked if I would have enough charge to return home (I did not). I hung up and with my Son wondering how we were going to get home I remembered hearing about "Plug Share" and downloaded the app to my phone and located a 70 Amp charger at the local Woodstock Hydro Company. We made our way there, plugged in for 45 minutes and got enough charge to barely make it back home with the car in Yellow mode and my face in Red mode as I had to explain to my Wife how a simple trip turned into an ordeal.

Not feeling very good about the reliability of the car at this point from a road trip perspective and definitely put a damper on the ownership experience from my family's perspective. Did not expect to be visiting service only 4 days after picking up the P85D and will now hope that they will be able to replicate the issue and fix it.

 

[SweetP]

Aggravating for sure but likely just a teething issue easily fixed. I had a bad UMC early on but, after replacement, have had no problems in 22000 miles.

 

[ecarfan]

Very sorry to hear about your problem but can assure you that what you experienced is extremely rare as far as I know. Keep us posted as to what Tesla Service tells you.

 

[GetAmped]

@ SweetP

What is a "UMC"? I am able to charge with my HPWC with no issues before and after the Supercharger attempt. Is this something not used when using the HPWC?

 

[3s-a-charm]

@ SweetP

What is a "UMC"? I am able to charge with my HPWC with no issues before and after the Supercharger attempt. Is this something not used when using the HPWC?

Thanks for that head's up! My wife would have the same reaction. For this reason... I will be driving to a Supercharger alone to ensure it works before getting into a "committed" trip and a red-faced embarrassment like that. Sorry to hear about that.

 

[SweetP]

Yep. It's the standard connector for a 14-50 wall socket.

 

[tezco]

Stevezzzz had a similar problem when he was far from home and discovered that one of his two chargers was on the blitz, so HPWC'ing was very slow. Fortunately these are bypassed when supercharging.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Yikes. Sorry to hear! Always a worry of mine, too. I took my last Model S up for a test Supercharge early on before later needing to rely on it with the family in tow for long trips. Will be doing the same soon with the new one, too.

It is pretty rare, judging from the forum. I can only recall one or two other cases where someone reported not being able to Supercharge. You'd think they would do a Supercharge check during final QA, but come to think of it I don't recall seeing any such thing in the final inspection area on my factory tour a year ago. Not to say that they don't, just that I didn't happen to see if they did.

For anyone else that's had a failure to Supercharge, what ended up being the issue? Seems like it should actually be pretty reliable, given the onboard chargers are bypassed during Supercharging. I guess the bypass relay could be at fault?

 

[RiverBrick]

Sorry about this experience. This is an isolated and rare incident that will probably never happen again once fixed. On the bright side, at least there was a 70A backup in town. Plugshare is great. You can also use the in-car browser to access it.

 

[trils0n]

Whenever I get the "Starting to Charge" followed by "Unable to Charge - Unplug and try again" I need to close the charge port door. If I just unplug and try again like the message says, it will not work. For my car, closing the charge port door always works for this situation. Had it happen 4 or 5 times to me, and have successfully suggested it twice to other travelers having the same issue.

 

[mibaro2]

Sorry to hear what happened.
I've had that message a few times at other SC. Once it took me 3 times of removing it and putting the charger back in before it finally continued charging. Seems some SC's require giving the adapter a firm push into the car port to get it aligned right. (don't think that was the issue in yur scenario).

I had been thinking of doing the same round trip to see the Woodstock Sc's.

Keep us posted with what Tesla says.

 

[SFOTurtle]

Whenever I get the "Starting to Charge" followed by "Unable to Charge - Unplug and try again" I need to close the charge port door. If I just unplug and try again like the message says, it will not work. For my car, closing the charge port door always works for this situation. Had it happen 4 or 5 times to me, and have successfully suggested it twice to other travelers having the same issue.

Thanks for sharing the tip. I've never had this happen in the dozens of times I've used Superchargers to date, but will keep this in mind. You might share your information with Tesla so that they can pass along to others who might experience this problem, as rare (I've never heard of it) as it might be.

 

[Jaff]

I had this happen in my P85 the first time I tried to supercharge...required an appointment with the Service Center...I should be picking my P85D up in a day or so...I will be checking to ensure that the car will supercharge before I leave the store...

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I had this happen in my P85 the first time I tried to supercharge...required an appointment with the Service Center...I should be picking my P85D up in a day or so...I will be checking to ensure that the car will supercharge before I leave the store...

Your store has a supercharger? Wow, cool.

 

[GetAmped]

Whenever I get the "Starting to Charge" followed by "Unable to Charge - Unplug and try again" I need to close the charge port door. If I just unplug and try again like the message says, it will not work. For my car, closing the charge port door always works for this situation. Had it happen 4 or 5 times to me, and have successfully suggested it twice to other travelers having the same issue.

Thanks for all of the feedback and tips. Not knowing about this tip I ended up executing it anyway as I kept moving the car to different stalls each time the charge port would close. Tesla was proactive and reached out to me and will be picking my car up for service on January 12. Will post an update once I get it back.

 

[GetAmped]

The Silver Bullet went in for service on Monday Jan 12 to figure out the Supercharger issue and was returned to me today. Service determined that the cars "Wiring Harness" used for Supercharging has a fault and could not be repaired. They disabled the Supercharging portion in the car and have ordered parts from Fremont and will book me back in for service in a week or so. Have to say that although I was initially upset that I experienced this charging issue with a brand new P85D, the local Toronto Lawrence Avenue Service Centre team has done a fantastic job of communicating with me through this and I really appreciate the door to door Valet service of shuttling me a loaner P85 then returning my car to me. Will post back when I get the fix and test it at the Toronto Supercharger.

 

[ckessel]

I'm baffled how this gets through quality control. Sounds like this was a failure straight from the factory floor. Does Tesla not actually test super charging capacity before releasing the car? It's been 30 months since the first car rolled off the line...this should not be have happened.

 

[Lintrix]

Appreciate the post and updates. I will definitely make a point to visit a Supercharger station prior to committing to any road trips to make sure mine doesn't have the same issues.

When I first got my car, I kept on getting the "Unable to Charge - Unplug and try again" when charging from home. I figured out that I did not plug it in far enough. It seems that I have to jam the damned thing in there.

 

[glhs272]

Appreciate the post and updates. I will definitely make a point to visit a Supercharger station prior to committing to any road trips to make sure mine doesn't have the same issues.

When I first got my car, I kept on getting the "Unable to Charge - Unplug and try again" when charging from home. I figured out that I did not plug it in far enough. It seems that I have to jam the damned thing in there.

When I first got my car, I had the same issue. Turned out I really had to push the supercharger cable in there HARD. Also I usually hold it in there hard until I see it charging. Since doing that I haven't had any issues. It appears this is not the problem that the OP has though.

 

[bxr140]

Does Tesla not actually test super charging capacity before releasing the car?

Doubt it. You cant workmanship test or verify functionality of every subassy/unit at the system level. So, where do you draw the line for testing production models? My guess is safety related features...