Ionity charge failure (UK)

[Midlifecrisis]

I had a problem last night arriving at an Ionity charger fairly late with 28% charge. I tried to plug it in for plug and charge, didn’t work. Charge port impaired message initially. Then tried Porsche charge card with no success. Moved to another charger and tried the Porsche card again. Still no success. Locked car for a few minutes then tried a credit card, didn’t work. I didn’t think to try starting it from the Porsche app but tried the Ionity app. Worked immediately. So what was the problem? I have no idea. Only that Ionity charged me 74p/kWh instead of 30p.

I phoned Porsche today who couldn’t tell me why it didn’t work, but that my account is active and they could see I had tried to start a charge several times. They want me to try it with the Porsche app - I will if it is convenient next time I pass it. And they did agree to refund me the difference in cost.

Any ideas what I could have done wrong or why it might not have worked? When it did eventually work it pulled 268kW initially before gradually scaling sown to 168 at 70% (presumably due to battery over 50 degrees) when I stopped it and left. So I presume the car is fine and this is all software behind the scenes.

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[simcity]

Sounds like something awry with the handshake / initialisation during P&C which meant it didn’t recognise your car. Starting it from the IONITY app proves there’s no hardware issue. It should have worked with Porsche app too - actually irrespective of what car you’ve actually connected to charge, but leverages the Porsche PCS rates.

 

[FredC057]

When this happens, you should contact Ionity directly. They started a free session for me 2 times already. And be sure the plug is correctly in during the handshake.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

Because I had a “charge port impaired” error on the car I thought the car was the problem until it actually started to charge. Given that it then got up to 268kW I presume the car is fine

 

[simcity]

Because I had a “charge port impaired” error on the car I thought the car was the problem until it actually started to charge. Given that it then got up to 268kW I presume the car is fine

CTRL+ALT+DEL ?

 

[Midlifecrisis]

Was passing the same Ionity station today so called in to try it again. Worked with the card this time, no need for an app. So clearly it was having a headache on Monday when it played up, although that makes it no less annoying

 

[bn8959]

I never even have to use my Porsche charge card - just plug and charge. Worked every time, no interaction required with the EVSE. Make sure you have Plug and charge enabled in your PCM settings.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

I never even have to use my Porsche charge card - just plug and charge. Worked every time, no interaction required with the EVSE. Make sure you have Plug and charge enabled in your PCM settings.

I will check. Do you turn the car off before plugging in or can you leave it on?

 

[bn8959]

I will check. Do you turn the car off before plugging in or can you leave it on?

Car off (not locked, of course). When you turn it off, if you have powered charge ports you get a button appear conveniently on the centre console to open the charge door.

 

[pio]

I had a similar problem with Ionity during a long trip and while in Germany, this was on 21th June 2025. However I am not using plug&charge (not available on MY2020) and always start charging sessions from the Ionity app on my phone by scanning the QR code.

So in my case there was not a problem with getting the session started, but after about 10 kWh the charging session stopped. In the car the error was something like "unable to communicate with charger" and later "charge port limited". On the carger it was something like "unable to communicate with vehicle".

A deep reset (keeping the car locked and moving the keyfob away for 10-15 minutes) did not resolve this.

The trip resulted in a hotel visit, where I could charge at 11 kW and with 100% SoC in the morning (the last 10% done just-in-time during breakfast) we could reach our destination, but we did loose a day of our 6d holiday.

Back in Holland I had my car checked and they could not find any problems. They stated that "charge port limited" is only a white message, so can usually be ignored.

Not sure if this is the same problem as others are reporting here on the forum with Ionity, but it's good to collect data. And it's probably a little bit reassuring that this might be a pure software glitch (either in the Ionity or Taycan platform) rather than my MY2020 starting to actually break down.

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