Car won't start charging in cold weather

[Sajan]

Temperature outside has been ~35-40 deg F.
Plugged in my level 2 charger, just blinks white. won't initiate charging.
App says: Error charging not possible.
Tried the Porsche EVSE and my Nissan EVSE (which is what I regularly use).

When it happened on monday, I had enough charge for a trip so when I came back and tried again, it worked.
Now it's low enough I need to charge before another trip....what to do...

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[Sajan]

Log:
1/10 - Decided to risk it and drive to a local electrify America charger. It’s charging at 67kw. Battery temp is 55 F.
I came home with 75%. Battery temp was around 90 F.
Started charging without any issues on level 2.

1/16 - Battery is at 3%. 48 F outside. Tried Porsche EVSE and the other EVSE....won't initialize charging. Both EVSEs you hear it trying to click on and negotiate, but then fails.

Turtle mode is on too now...so don't think I can make it to a DC charger.

 

[SergeyIndy]

These are the symptoms of a failed onboard charger. Do you know if you have the upgraded 19.2kW onboard charger, that one tends to break down often with recent reports on the forum. Turtle means limited power by the drivetrain due to low SoC, which does not necessarily mean a battery module starting to fail.

 

[Sajan]

These are the symptoms of a failed onboard charger. Do you know if you have the upgraded 19.2kW onboard charger, that one tends to break down often with recent reports on the forum. Turtle means limited power by the drivetrain due to low SoC, which does not necessarily mean a battery module starting to fail.

Looked at the window sticker and it just says 11 kW on-board charger.

Would a low voltage on the 12V battery cause this?
I plugged a trickle charger in just now. Will rule that out in a few hours.

 

[SergeyIndy]

Keep us posted. I do not know if 12V battery is related to a failure to AC charge. I assume you tried both ports for AC charging. 12V would not be impacted by your ambient temps as they are not low, but I agree with your approach to eliminate that factor.

 

[Sajan]

CTEK trickle charger showed green which means it's done.
Car showed 13.47V for 12V.

Still won't charge.
Main battery is down to 1% haha...

Guess it's going to have to get towed to a dealership.

What do I need to do to get it "towing ready"?

 

[SergeyIndy]

The car can only be transported on flat bed. You still have enough to move it to the flat bed. Nothing special as Jack mode does not apply.

 

[Sajan]

So get this..
I reversed the car onto the driveway so car can be driven onto the tow truck.

This of course puts the charger cable out of reach.
I figured, hey let me try the 110V level 1 with an extension cord..uhm...car started charging at 1.3 kwh.

So I flipped the car back around and voila it's now charging at 9.0kwh on level 2.

what to make of this..?

 

[SergeyIndy]

So get this..
I reversed the car onto the driveway so car can be driven onto the tow truck.

This of course puts the charger cable out of reach.
I figured, hey let me try the 110V level 1 with an extension cord..uhm...car started charging at 1.3 kwh.

So I flipped the car back around and voila it's now charging at 9.0kwh on level 2.

what to make of this..?

Very interesting stuff. I totally overlooked the Level 1 charging option that may have reset something in the onboard charger for Level 2. Hope this is just a onetime glitch and not your onboard charger going bad.

I would make sure to have enough charge to drive it to the dealer to avoid flat bed if Level 2 fails again by charging up at a DC since that seems to work reliably.

 

[anonymouse]

Are you sure your charger (on the wall, into which you plug the car) is working properly in low temperatures? The error "charging not possible" is what we see when the car is requesting a charge but the charger is not supplying power -- eg because our charger is set only to operate in off peak times. I don't know American chargers but perhaps check its specification to see what its operating temperatures are.

 

[Sajan]

Are you sure your charger (on the wall, into which you plug the car) is working properly in low temperatures? The error "charging not possible" is what we see when the car is requesting a charge but the charger is not supplying power -- eg because our charger is set only to operate in off peak times. I don't know American chargers but perhaps check its specification to see what its operating temperatures are.

I have the Mobile Charger Plus (40A) and there's no setting on it other than flipping it from 50% to 100%.
The Nissan EVSE is 30A and it has no settings. Just a dumb charger.

I toggled Direct Charging off and on. No difference.
Profile OFF and ON, no difference.

There's something going on with the onboard level 2 charger that it won't properly negotiate and get the charging session going. I am not sure if it's related to temperature or some other bug.
But I've had the car since Nov and this just started in the last 2 weeks after the temperature dropped.

I am well within operating temp for charger. Currently 50-60 F.

Porsche Mobile Charger Plus
Operate the charger within a temperature range from –22 °F (–30 °C) to+122 °F (+50 °C)

 

[anonymouse]

I have the Mobile Charger Plus (40A) and there's no setting on it other than flipping it from 50% to 100%.

It does have an operating specification but your current weather does seem in ranger:

​

The manual describes a series of lights to tell you what the car is doing. Does that tell you anything?​

 

[anonymouse]

Turtle means limited power by the drivetrain due to low SoC, which does not necessarily mean a battery module starting to fail.

Actually Turtle can also just mean it's cold. From the manual:

 

[whitex]

@Sajan
My Taycan recently had an onboard charger failure which needed replacement. My port lite eventually went red though, not just infinite blinking white as you say. The actual error was that the onboard charger was unable to read temperature (you need shop OBD tools to read that out). Worth noting that this also prevented my car from DC charging, so perhaps a different failure than yours. However, I would still take it to service to see if they can pull fault history from the car - your onboard charger may be failing, and if so, why not have them order a new one and you keep (carefully) driving it until it arrives and they can slot you in for a replacement.

Side note, when this happens, I would try leaving sufficient energy in the battery so that the car can make it to Porsche on its own power - easier that way, at least to me.

 

[Sajan]

Went out this morning to confirm my theory on whether it starts up on level 1 charging...
nope.
So that wasn't it.

I sat in the car, and then held the power button down for 30 secs or so. Tried level 2. nope.
Tried level 1. yes.
then level 2. yes.

So the car is needing some sort of reset, then level 1 to 2...huh..
Will have to get the codes pulled.
My PIWIS is not able to do it for the Taycan. Says it needs to be online...

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