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Tesla Model 3 Down: Won't Power Up, and is Inaccessible

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I am worried something like this would happen to my X/3 and Tesla would blame my dashcam to be the culprit. (They blamed my dashcam installation when the rear AC vent stopped working properly on the X---had to $$$).

Hopefully it is a simple fix...I never had any 12V issues on my X or 3...but the 3 does seem to make a bunch of noises.

I haven't installed a dashcam, so it's definitely not that for me
 
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Yeah, luckily I'm on a mobile charger here. Tesla originally wanted to flatbed the car and bring it in. If I was connected to a hardwired charger, it would have to be fixed on-site or the charger would have to be removed. I just find it sub-optimal that the vehicle can literally be plugged into a working power outlet (and attached to a 75kWh battery) and not have enough power to open the doors or remove the charger cable. You'd think they'd be able to work around the problems of a legacy ICE that doesn't have redundant electrical power.
Musk had favoured ditching the 12V legacy battery system in the Y, and had said that was going to happen, but then his designers and the board convinced him that the work and risk in switching over all the electrical design in the car to the main battery was biting off too much at this point.
 
I wonder if replacing the 12V acid battery with an lithium-ion battery would avoid having such problem,
or could worsen if the 12V is not accessible and difficult to replace?

How the Hyundai Ioniq Ditched Its Traditional 12V Lead-Acid Starter Battery

Hyundai-Ioniq-Hybrid-12-volt-battery.jpg
 
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What kind of noises? Fart sounds? Belches? Sings tunes under its breath annoyingly?
Maybe you accidentally got the comedian package.

:) Sorry. My brain went there.
Is there a model X parked in the garage alongside the model 3? Perhaps they are making "night noises" trying to create a little model Y?

My brain is like totally gone right now, result of a bad pipe last night. :confused:
 
Please keep us posted on the diagnosis. I’m a 3000 vin east coast Model 3 owner as well so want to make sure I’m aware of any issues. Pretty amazing if Tesla is still having 12v issues. I thought I recently read that the Y would lose the 12v. I think that would solve a lot of these issues. My old MS had the 12v replaced 3x in the first 2yrs.
 
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Normally the 12v only charges when the car is on or actively charging. On later S&X cars Tesla added a 12v output on the battery pack to help prevent cycles on the 12v battery. We would assume that the Model 3 does that as well but we don't know. (We had heard that in early firmware versions you had to charge the car often to keep the 12v battery from going dead, but I thought they had fixed that.)

I don't believe this is true for S/X.

The 12V battery is charged via the DC-DC converter, and that can happen regardless of charging state of the car, or if the car is "on". In other words, as long as the high-voltage battery has sufficient energy, it will cycle to charge the 12V. This has been demonstrated with the graphs of power consumption and current supplied to the 12V when folks were investigating vampire drain.

The firmware over time has been updated to improve how this operates.

Do you have a source for later traction battery packs implementing a 12V output that somehow prevents load/cycles on the lead acid battery? I've seen the idea discussed.
 
Tesla was originally sending a flatbed, but because we can't get inside to put it into tow mode, we both agreed waiting for a Ranger to come on Monday would be a better option.

I’m curious if Monday was the earliest a Ranger could be dispatched to you. If a similar situation happened to me I would want a Ranger to stop by in a few hours, not a few days.
 
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You have to unplug it and plug it back in three times before you call tech support.
Here are a few more from the reddit threads:
  • "Ctrl+Alt+Del?"
  • "Jiggle the cord?"
  • "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
  • "Ctrl + Alt + Delete and end task.. it's probably calculating best route to roll into the garage."
  • "Thanks for beta testing this for me. Hope all kinks are ironed out by the time I get mine. "
  • "Unfolded paperclip?"
  • "Take out the battery and out it back in. Works on my phone."
 
A faulty 12v can fail at any time in any car. The fact that Tesla doesn't provide a physical key to get into the car for this case is unusual, but not unique. It's certainly not specific to the Model 3.

Of course it may not turn out to be a bad 12v battery, but that seems like the most likely possibility.

(btw, the car will normally keep the 12v charged regardless of circumstances, even if parked unplugged in a parking lot for months. But it needs the 12v to run the computer that controls this and to connect the main battery, so if it's already dead nothing can be done.)
 
Musk had favoured ditching the 12V legacy battery system in the Y, and had said that was going to happen, but then his designers and the board convinced him that the work and risk in switching over all the electrical design in the car to the main battery was biting off too much at this point.
I find that surprising as my 1.5 Roadster has no 12v battery and has been solid for over 9 years now. So it is not new technology.
 
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Thanks!

Most (virtually all?) other vehicles which have systems like Smart Key System (Toyota parlance) or Intelligent Key (Nissan parlance) include a mechanical key in the fob and at least 1 key hole to allow unlocking of the door if the fob dies, or fob battery or 12 volt battery dies.

Also, it is absurd that Teslas lock their connector to their car during L1 and L2 AC charging and AFAIK, keep it locked w/o providing an option to the driver to either not lock or auto-unlock when done. It causes extra complications and need for coordination w/Tesla folks at my work who share the HPWCs we have.

Most other vehicles w/J1772 inlets except for a few current offenders like (some?) Kia Soul EV, some VW e-Golfs and the BMW 3-series PHEV either don't have any charging lock or give the driver a choice as to whether to lock, don't lock or unlock when done or just unlock when finished.


Your idea to allow the owner to configure whether the charging cable locks is a good one. I would suggest that the feature be GPS-based so that one could add locations where you would prefer to override locking, such as when charging at the home base.