Supercharger orange ring ???

[srharris22]

we have owned our X for a 8 days. It charges fine at home with wall connector on a NEMA 14-50 outlet, it works fine on a 110 outlet (as fine as 4 m/hr can be), and it works fine and other EV spots with our provided Tesla attachments.
HOWEVER! At three different superchargers, we are getting an orange ring and the car simply won’t charge. Tried multiple stalls, and multiple locations. Even called Tesla and no help. Any thoughts here? Saw a few threads where people pretty said to mess with the power cord, wiggle the handle down to get a click......
Pretty much tried all this

At this point assuming we will be getting a new port.

 

[Solarman004]

@srharris22 , you probably already know this, but just to make sure: Supercharger handles require a very firm, steady push to get them to seat properly. Much more firm than the HPWC handle.
If you are already doing this, it's time for the SC to look at this.

 

[purplewalt]

What Solarman004 said is correct.

Typically when the Supercharger handle is inserted and seated correctly, the port will be a bright blue color, then it switches to green.
And they do sometimes require a firm push.

Power @ a Supercharger is DC, so it will route around your car's inverter straight to your battery pack.

 

[DriveMe]

What others said! When I first got my car, I was getting the orange ring rather often, even with HPWC. But then I realized, I just wasn't pushing the plug hard enough into the car. No more orange rings since I figured out the correct way of inserting it.

 

[srharris22]

I have not been present, my wife is the one on the road trip.
However she has had 4 different Tesla owners help her with trying to use the supercharger and they all go their own cars working but not ours.

Thank you for feedback, if my wife was only one trying then I’d probably assume it was the force needed to insert that was lacking.
I’ll be taking it to a supercharger tomorrow with her and calling service center as well.
Thank you

 

[DriveMe]

Then you definitely need a service call!

 

[Solarman004]

This is a long shot, but if your wife can reach Roadside Assistance while the car is plugged into a Supercharger, they may be able to remotely diagnose the issue.
I'm sorry to hear about this. Being on a road trip without the ability to supercharge is not a pleasant experience. I hope Tesla can help you quickly--maybe even a Ranger visit somewhere on your wife's route. Good luck.

 

[GoCanes]

I helped out a Model S at a supercharger with exactly the same problem. We even swapped chargers and my X charged perfectly at the same chargers that gave them problems. We concluded it was a problem in the S and needed a service call.

 

[carteriii]

I recently experienced the “orange ring” problem but luckily found a simpler cause & solution. Apparently someone had let the supercharger connector fall to the ground where it managed to pick up a small pebble (or piece of loose asphalt). This was preventing it from being pushed in all the way into my Tesla. This never occurred to me, but fortunately someone else noticed. Once the pebble was removed, the connector was able to push all the way in. So my lesson was, in the event of the orange ring/bad connection, look both in my charger port and at the end of the cable/connector (a flashlight can help) for anything which might be an obstruction. Also never let the supercharger connector touch the ground.

 

[DriveMe]

Good point! And also, make sure to try another charging stall: might be a faulty charger.

 

[Krazaak]

Not sure if you've had this fixed yet, but I recently got a brand new MX 100D loaner (22 miles) while mine was in getting a seat replaced. The charge port was abnormally snug and took 2 or 3 tries to seat with my HPWC or I'd get an orange ring. My experience is SC charge handles are usually more snug than HPWC.

 

[Mookie]

I picked up my MX today and discovered that none of us could get the supercharger plug to seat and start charging. SC said this is a NEW issue that has popped up in the last week or so . . . they guessed maybe the factory changed charge port suppliers or specs.

They changed out the charge port so that now, with some VERY firm pushing, I can get the car to connect and charge at a SuperCharger. I drove my nifty new car around for a few hours, then stopped at a different SuperCharger to recharge. After charging I could not get the charge port to unlock and release the cable. I asked another (experienced) owner to help and he said it wasn't unlocking. No white ring. I was stuck at the Supercharger!

While on hold with roadside assistance and still monkeying around with it I finally got it to unluck and I was able to pull the cable out. Phew!

SC said they've notified the factory and added me to "the list" for repairs once a solution is provided.

 

[DriveMe]

After charging I could not get the charge port to unlock and release the cable. I asked another (experienced) owner to help and he said it wasn't unlocking. No white ring. I was stuck at the Supercharger!
While on hold with roadside assistance and still monkeying around with it I finally got it to unluck and I was able to pull the cable out. Phew!

Sorry to hear about your problem! I hope you are aware that the car needs to be unlocked. You can’t remove the cable while the car is locked. Even after the charging is complete.
The first time I supercharged I couldn’t remove the cable either, but then I realized that my car was locked. A rookie mistake on my part!

 

[Mookie]

Sorry to hear about your problem! I hope you are aware that the car needs to be unlocked. You can’t remove the cable while the car is locked. Even after the charging is complete.
The first time I supercharged I couldn’t remove the cable either, but then I realized that my car was locked. A rookie mistake on my part!

Yup, car was unlocked. Door wide open. Had a long-term Model S owner assisting and he couldn't get it out, either. Can't blame the rookie for this one.

 

[BerTX]

I picked up my MX today and discovered that none of us could get the supercharger plug to seat and start charging. SC said this is a NEW issue that has popped up in the last week or so . . . they guessed maybe the factory changed charge port suppliers or specs.

They changed out the charge port so that now, with some VERY firm pushing, I can get the car to connect and charge at a SuperCharger. I drove my nifty new car around for a few hours, then stopped at a different SuperCharger to recharge. After charging I could not get the charge port to unlock and release the cable. I asked another (experienced) owner to help and he said it wasn't unlocking. No white ring. I was stuck at the Supercharger!

While on hold with roadside assistance and still monkeying around with it I finally got it to unluck and I was able to pull the cable out. Phew!

SC said they've notified the factory and added me to "the list" for repairs once a solution is provided.

 

[d21mike]

Yup, car was unlocked. Door wide open. Had a long-term Model S owner assisting and he couldn't get it out, either. Can't blame the rookie for this one.

This first weekend I had my car (9/28/2017) I could not get the cable out while at supercharger. I did not realize I needed to push and hold the button down while pulling it out. (same button to open the port).

 

[Mokuzai]

I had a similar issue with the port turning orange, but it would happen seemingly randomly. Each time the dash would say that it's not latched. I would pull into one stall and get the orange circle, move to another stall and work fine. Come back at another time and use the first stall that gave me an issue and it would work fine.

One day it took 3-4 moves before I got one to latch. Took note of the date/time and had Tesla pull my logs. All they could find was it was reporting not latching and to be sure to "push it in firmly".

Luckily one day I pulled into a service center and wanted to put it on the charger while talking to service and it happened there. Had a tech come out to look at it and after he couldn't get it to latch he said it definitely wasn't normal and they replaced my charge port. Haven't had any issues since.

Took delivery early June 2017 and the problem showed itself on both new and older superchargers.

 

[JHuberman]

One other thing to consider... sometimes it takes several pushes of the button to get the white ring. Let it go through whatever color changes it wants and then press the button again. This is unlikely to work if something is seriously wrong.

 

[bogienut]

We picked up our new Model X 100d on Saturday, Dec 8 and had the same problem. We could charge at home with the wall charger but not at the supercharger. Yesterday the ranger was out and noticed right away that the fit was too tight. They replaced the plug on the car with a different one and now charging works fine at the superchargers. Seems like the new builds have bad plugs, maybe due to a different supplier.

 

[sub]

Experienced this today on my trip home from picking up our new X. Luckily I had read this thread before hand and was almost expecting it to happen. Tried 4 different stalls and pushed on handle as hard as I could, nothing but orange. Had enough juice to get home and will deal with issue asap.