Problem Solved? have I stumbled onto the cause of charge port unlock problem?

daveo4EV

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Team,

as you know I have been no fan of Electrify America - and highly critical of their charging network and it’s interaction with my Taycan - my personal success rate with EA has been very very low, with me personally discovering new failure modes that boggle the mind…

hold on to your hats
stay in your seats
and prepare yourself for the 1st report by @daveo4EV that the Electrify America network worked flawlessly for me this past weekend.

this past weekend PCA GGR held their early fall event at thunderhill - being couped up since mid-march I decided I would drive my Taycan to a location where I was guarenteed a receptive audience - a PCA Track event where friends and well wishers would all certainly gush over my beauty and appreciate the opportunity for some up close time with this marvelous vehicle. It also provided me an opportunity to “test” a road trip in a relatively safe environment - Thunderhill is far enough from me to be interesting, but not awkward if things don’t go well - and there is good charging infrastructure on the way from Santa Cruz area to Willows, CA…

The trip provide my 1st flawless EA stop…
  1. I visited the EA charging stop at Nut Tree mall in Vacaville, CA - it’s next to the Tesla Supercharger location I’m very very familiar with
  2. I parked
  3. I plugged in
  4. I activated the charging session via the Porsche Connect app
  5. the car charged for 30 minutes - from xx% to 92%
    1. maximum charge rate observed was 78 kW during the session
    2. I was parked at a labled 350 kW station
      1. I’m choosing to overlook this “flaw” and going with the fact that the charge session worked
      2. move on nothing to see here - yes it was slower than Tesla and no where near max rate
      3. I’m going to give Porsche/EA the win here - just move on....
  6. and I went to unplug - and OMG it worked the first time, the plug came right out!!!! A miracle, a legit miracle
  7. I proceeded with my weekend and the car behaved marvelously and achieved a great efficiency and range result on the return trip.
so what did I do differently?

Well i think I know, but will need to do more testing and trial/error to see but I think I stumbled onto a perfectly logical, but poor user experience as to why I’ve had sooo much trouble unlocking my plugs at the end of my charging session.

The root cause is Porsche’s overly aggressive implementation of the vehicle auto-lock/unlock behaviors. And in particular the setting that had by default to only unlock the driver’s door…

I have my 2020 Taycan set to only unlock the driver’s door - this leaves the other 3 doors locked most of the time. When the doors are locked - Porsche also ”locks” the charge point so that people can not remove the charging connector…

could it be that when the passenger door is locked that the lock on the passenger side charge point (the fast DC side) is also locked?

this time I made sure to fully unlock the car, hitting the key fob unlock an excessive number of times - and volia the charge port released with NO issues!!!

I’d love confirmation or additonal data - I was going to do some testing around this theory myself, but for some reason I’ve lost access to my Taycan so I have no access to a vehicle to test…

in any case I thought I’d share my first great EA/Taycan charging experience and let everyone know I’m not just a bad-news guys - I try and stick to the facts. And this time the facts are great…

I think Porsche should change the software to have charge ports unlocked when ever the driver’s door is unlocked or passenger door - I believe if my theory is correct few if any people would successfully associate a locked passenger door with the reason they can not unplug from EA - also pepole traveling in pairs (like porsche does all it’s testing) would never encounter this problem…a simple software tweak and this problem could disappear if my theory is correct.
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kmcdonal

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Team,

as you know I have been no fan of Electrify America - and highly critical of their charging network and it’s interaction with my Taycan - my personal success rate with EA has been very very low, with me personally discovering new failure modes that boggle the mind…

hold on to your hats
stay in your seats
and prepare yourself for the 1st report by @daveo4EV that the Electrify America network worked flawlessly for me this past weekend.

this past weekend PCA GGR held their early fall event at thunderhill - being couped up since mid-march I decided I would drive my Taycan to a location where I was guarenteed a receptive audience - a PCA Track event where friends and well wishers would all certainly gush over my beauty and appreciate the opportunity for some up close time with this marvelous vehicle. It also provided me an opportunity to “test” a road trip in a relatively safe environment - Thunderhill is far enough from me to be interesting, but not awkward if things don’t go well - and there is good charging infrastructure on the way from Santa Cruz area to Willows, CA…

The trip provide my 1st flawless EA stop…
  1. I visited the EA charging stop at Nut Tree mall in Vacaville, CA - it’s next to the Tesla Supercharger location I’m very very familiar with
  2. I parked
  3. I plugged in
  4. I activated the charging session via the Porsche Connect app
  5. the car charged for 30 minutes - from xx% to 92%
    1. maximum charge rate observed was 78 kW during the session
    2. I was parked at a labled 350 kW station
      1. I’m choosing to overlook this “flaw” and going with the fact that the charge session worked
      2. move on nothing to see here - yes it was slower than Tesla and no where near max rate
      3. I’m going to give Porsche/EA the win here - just move on....
  6. and I went to unplug - and OMG it worked the first time, the plug came right out!!!! A miracle, a legit miracle
  7. I proceeded with my weekend and the car behaved marvelously and achieved a great efficiency and range result on the return trip.
so what did I do differently?

Well i think I know, but will need to do more testing and trial/error to see but I think I stumbled onto a perfectly logical, but poor user experience as to why I’ve had sooo much trouble unlocking my plugs at the end of my charging session.

The root cause is Porsche’s overly aggressive implementation of the vehicle auto-lock/unlock behaviors. And in particular the setting that had by default to only unlock the driver’s door…

I have my 2020 Taycan set to only unlock the driver’s door - this leaves the other 3 doors locked most of the time. When the doors are locked - Porsche also ”locks” the charge point so that people can not remove the charging connector…

could it be that when the passenger door is locked that the lock on the passenger side charge point (the fast DC side) is also locked?

this time I made sure to fully unlock the car, hitting the key fob unlock an excessive number of times - and volia the charge port released with NO issues!!!

I’d love confirmation or additonal data - I was going to do some testing around this theory myself, but for some reason I’ve lost access to my Taycan so I have no access to a vehicle to test…

in any case I thought I’d share my first great EA/Taycan charging experience and let everyone know I’m not just a bad-news guys - I try and stick to the facts. And this time the facts are great…

I think Porsche should change the software to have charge ports unlocked when ever the driver’s door is unlocked or passenger door - I believe if my theory is correct few if any people would successfully associate a locked passenger door with the reason they can not unplug from EA - also pepole traveling in pairs (like porsche does all it’s testing) would never encounter this problem…a simple software tweak and this problem could disappear if my theory is correct.

About three months back I struggled with a stuck charging plug at home with the Porsche Mobile Charger. I haven't had the issue for a while, but I know that I tried unlocking the car dozens of times and had the passenger door open much of the time. I think there are probably a couple issues at play here.
 

r553

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Maybe I've been lucky but I've used the EA station nearest me three times. The first time only one charging position was on line. The last two times all stations were on line and the charge was free due to "equipment upgrade".
 

manitou202

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I found with my E-tron, if I plug in the car, get back in while it's charging, and press the start button to turn on the HVAC / radio, I need to turn back off the car before unplugging. Otherwise it says charging issue when I try to unplug, and it doesn't release. As soon as I turn off the car then it releases.

I haven't tried this on the Taycan, but I wouldn't be surprised that it could have a similar issue.
 
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daveo4EV

daveo4EV

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About three months back I struggled with a stuck charging plug at home with the Porsche Mobile Charger. I haven't had the issue for a while, but I know that I tried unlocking the car dozens of times and had the passenger door open much of the time. I think there are probably a couple issues at play here.
I agree with you and have had similar experience - but we’re now post software update where Porsche mades some explicit claims as to fixing some issues - while I’ve still had the issue post software update - it’s been better - and with my “discovery” this past weekend - I’m excited for more testing to see if I stumbled onto a particluar use case.
 
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UroDoc

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Team,

as you know I have been no fan of Electrify America - and highly critical of their charging network and it’s interaction with my Taycan - my personal success rate with EA has been very very low, with me personally discovering new failure modes that boggle the mind…

hold on to your hats
stay in your seats
and prepare yourself for the 1st report by @daveo4EV that the Electrify America network worked flawlessly for me this past weekend.

this past weekend PCA GGR held their early fall event at thunderhill - being couped up since mid-march I decided I would drive my Taycan to a location where I was guarenteed a receptive audience - a PCA Track event where friends and well wishers would all certainly gush over my beauty and appreciate the opportunity for some up close time with this marvelous vehicle. It also provided me an opportunity to “test” a road trip in a relatively safe environment - Thunderhill is far enough from me to be interesting, but not awkward if things don’t go well - and there is good charging infrastructure on the way from Santa Cruz area to Willows, CA…

The trip provide my 1st flawless EA stop…
  1. I visited the EA charging stop at Nut Tree mall in Vacaville, CA - it’s next to the Tesla Supercharger location I’m very very familiar with
  2. I parked
  3. I plugged in
  4. I activated the charging session via the Porsche Connect app
  5. the car charged for 30 minutes - from xx% to 92%
    1. maximum charge rate observed was 78 kW during the session
    2. I was parked at a labled 350 kW station
      1. I’m choosing to overlook this “flaw” and going with the fact that the charge session worked
      2. move on nothing to see here - yes it was slower than Tesla and no where near max rate
      3. I’m going to give Porsche/EA the win here - just move on....
  6. and I went to unplug - and OMG it worked the first time, the plug came right out!!!! A miracle, a legit miracle
  7. I proceeded with my weekend and the car behaved marvelously and achieved a great efficiency and range result on the return trip.
so what did I do differently?

Well i think I know, but will need to do more testing and trial/error to see but I think I stumbled onto a perfectly logical, but poor user experience as to why I’ve had sooo much trouble unlocking my plugs at the end of my charging session.

The root cause is Porsche’s overly aggressive implementation of the vehicle auto-lock/unlock behaviors. And in particular the setting that had by default to only unlock the driver’s door…

I have my 2020 Taycan set to only unlock the driver’s door - this leaves the other 3 doors locked most of the time. When the doors are locked - Porsche also ”locks” the charge point so that people can not remove the charging connector…

could it be that when the passenger door is locked that the lock on the passenger side charge point (the fast DC side) is also locked?

this time I made sure to fully unlock the car, hitting the key fob unlock an excessive number of times - and volia the charge port released with NO issues!!!

I’d love confirmation or additonal data - I was going to do some testing around this theory myself, but for some reason I’ve lost access to my Taycan so I have no access to a vehicle to test…

in any case I thought I’d share my first great EA/Taycan charging experience and let everyone know I’m not just a bad-news guys - I try and stick to the facts. And this time the facts are great…

I think Porsche should change the software to have charge ports unlocked when ever the driver’s door is unlocked or passenger door - I believe if my theory is correct few if any people would successfully associate a locked passenger door with the reason they can not unplug from EA - also pepole traveling in pairs (like porsche does all it’s testing) would never encounter this problem…a simple software tweak and this problem could disappear if my theory is correct.
Yikes! Wish I had thought to post my experience here earlier - YES! You hit the nail on the head. When I forget to unlock passenger side door - this happens.
Unlock all doors - the charger comes out without hassle.
 
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daveo4EV

daveo4EV

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Update from a little birdie:

charge port lock/unlock scenarios:

Scenario #1
  1. drive up to EA stall
  2. exit vehicle w/key-fob
  3. plug-in to charge
  4. walk away from vehicle to get food, lock vehicle
  5. return - unlock vehicle and unplug
the above scenario works (most of the time) - and what the germans consider "correct"

Scenario #2 - stupid American scenario (according to the germans)
  1. drive up to EA stall
  2. exit vehicle - leave key in vehicle
  3. plug-in to charge
  4. return to driver's seat - close driver's door
  5. stare at your phone while the charging session proceeds
  6. when charging finishes - open driver's door from inside vehicle
  7. leave key-fob in vehicle
  8. walk around to unplug
  9. good chance the vehicle will still have the charge port locked and there will be little of any indication as to how to proceed.
bottom line according to my birdie - vehicle is behaving "as designed" - porsche Germany engineering is reluctant to say there is a problem since the vehicle lock/unlock behavior is behaving as intended - Porsche NA needs customer feedback with more careful logging of your activities to discuss what the vehicle lock/unlock behavior is - and where the vehicle key was at various points during the charging lifecycle

the above steps are _NOT_ a script to follow - but rather illustrate the sort of scenario Porsche designed the system to handle - the scenario #1 is the one they have optimized for- scenario #2 not so much - so there is a confusing set of activities that have to do with: key position, lock/unloock status, how was the door opened (from inside or outside) and relative key-position according the vehicle during the entire process - and when in particular you attempt to remove the charging port plug…opening the door from inside the vehicle while it's charging apparently is a major contributor (vs. unlocking the car with the fob from outside).

bonus insight: there are places in the vehicle where it can not "see" the key - and if the vehicle doesn't "see" the key-fob that further confuses the impenetrable German vehicle locking/unlock logic…and may lead to further lock/unlock failures.

no clear answer at this time as to how to unconfuse the vehicle if the port is not unlocking, but it has something to do with the way in which you start the charging session and if you wait with the vehicle during the charging session, what order doors are locked/unlocked, how doors are locked/unlocked, and the relative position of the key-fob at various points during the charging process

so basically it's a crap shoot, the germans have over engineered it - and they are reticent to admit they may need to simplify it.

feedback to Porsche NA will go a long ways towards convincing porsche to fix this problem. Posting on this forum is _NOT_ feedback to Porsche NA - you'll need to speak to your service advisor or sales assistant - and I recommend you bring specific examples that have impacted you and not "just forward the petition".

apparently the charge port locking logic was designed by the same person that felt we needed Both a timer and a profile to setup charging to begin at midnight and charge to 85%

someone needs to go over there and suggest to them that they "simplify"

if the door handles are extended -the charge port should be unlocked - simple clean fool proof!

porsche needs some serious help with their software.

that is all.
 
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Scandinavian

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@daveo4EV , first of all I am sorry to hear about all the problems you have encountered with your car and especially the 12 volt issue in another thread.

Intetesting observation about the unlocking of the charge port and the whisper.

I have only charged at Ionity three of four times but never had any of the above issues. I always sit in the car with the music playing and have something to drink or stare at my phone as above. I have never turned the car off via the switch either. Just drove up to the charger, stepped out and plugged in. Then sat back in the car, but no other locking or turning off etc. My key is normally just dropped in one of the cup holders and stays there the whole time. At least twice my wife has also been sitting in the car. I have not changed anything of door unlocking so all cars are unlocked at the same time.

But I have never had any problems in withdrawing the charge cable from the car. Has not even occurred to me that this could be a problem since I have never locked the car during the process.

There must be some other factors at play here as well then?
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