Fast Charging Problems: “Electrical system error Service necessary” and “Unable to start charging”

ron_b

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Let me start out by saying I know there are a lot of threads on this topic however, I want to distinguish this by saying this is only errors during DC fast charging and I want to provide workarounds so people don’t think they need to have their vehicles towed. Also, I am interested in if other people have been seeing more of these problems recently as I had five charging errors out of 10 DCFS charges in a 16 Hour road-trip.
  • 3 errors left car operational but unable to start a new fast charging session.
  • 2 errors showed “Electrical system error Service necessary” leaving the car non-operational, except to go into neutral for towing.
Solutions:
  • For the unable to start charging, simply lock the car with no occupants take your keys with you and keep a good distance from the vehicle for over 15 minutes, 16 is a safe number. Then return to the vehicle unlock it, and charging should be fine.
  • For the electrical system, failure, lock your car with no occupants take your keys with you keeping a good distance for over 30 minutes, 31 minutes is fine. Return to your vehicle, and all is well again.
Note that in my five charging errors, I was able to do a fair amount of diagnostics to come up with these times, not that I enjoy doing it at midnight and 2 AM, but one does what one has to to get home.

Charging problems happened at five different locations so I am not putting the blame on Electrify America just yet.
I have a Porsche Taycan 2020 with nearly 45,000 miles and I’ve had 285 DCFC sessions with very few errors until recently. I do have the latest software update applied.

I have provided details to my local Porsche dealer, and I am awaiting a service appointment.

Porsche Taycan Fast Charging Problems: “Electrical system error Service necessary” and “Unable to start charging” 93124DB1-F9E1-43A7-85C9-802A1176AA3B
Porsche Taycan Fast Charging Problems: “Electrical system error Service necessary” and “Unable to start charging” A0AD575A-3FCD-46C3-85C1-7FA6EA1C9EA2
Porsche Taycan Fast Charging Problems: “Electrical system error Service necessary” and “Unable to start charging” DEEE166C-473C-44ED-BAC6-172413B9D9D5
 

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Thank you for the problem info and the workarounds.
Some questions about the problems you experienced.
1. The "unable to start charging". Was this a message that appeared - on the instrument panel, the console, or the EA charging station? After connecting car to EA charging stations I see: connecting to vehicle...approving payment.....initiating charging. Did any of that happen during your unable to start charging?

2. With "unable to start charging" situation, since your workaround is to exit the car for 15 minutes, I'm assuming that trying a different cable and trying a different charging station or even a different charging site did not fix the problem? Is that correct?

3. Two months ago on a road trip at an EA site, charging would only last for 2 minutes, then EA station terminated the session, without any errors. Happened on multiple cables on 3 stations at that location. EA support told me that was happening system wide on that model station and was being worked on. Did you see if EA support knew of any equipment problems?

4. The red light on the charging port. Which situation did the red light appear - unable to start charging, or during the electrical system error?

5. When the red light appeared, what did you have to do to disconnect the charging plug?
 
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Thank you for your interest @Tooney , let me try to answer:

1. The "unable to start charging".
Sorry for not being clear, no, there was no message on the screen of the vehicle when this condition occurred other than the red light on the charge port, as well as the charging screen in the car, as well as the Porsche app, showing a red bar for the state of charge. These 3 things all indicate trouble is brewing.

2. did I try other chargers? Yes, I would plug into the same charger and also moved to other chargers. In fact, I even drove 20 miles to another charger and had the exact same condition of after authenticating, the charger would stop immediately. I have now added the screenshot for what you generally get on the charger. The only solution was to leave the car for 15 minutes and then I was able to start a session normally.

3. I did have many phone calls with Electrify America during this trip but no, they did not mention that others we’re having similar issues. For the one station in Atascadero, I did see some PlugShare comments of people having troubles, but that was only one out of the five stations that I had problems with during this 16 hour journey.

4. The red light on the charging port. Which situation did the red light appear. As I recall, it happened after any charging failure for either the state of not being able to start a charge or not being able to move the vehicle. Of course, not being able to move the vehicle is the scariest.

5. When the red light appeared, what did you have to do to disconnect the charging plug? Yes, the red light appearing always means that the charging session has ended, which always requires you to unplug the charger first and then maybe try to charge again. During my trip charging again was never successful until the car had been shut off, locked, and left for some amount of time.

Porsche Taycan Fast Charging Problems: “Electrical system error Service necessary” and “Unable to start charging” 60FEAF2F-98E0-4A1A-8CC5-5E0D140C20D9
 

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@ron_b , thanks for the additional information. Bad experiences to have on a long trip. And per your photo above, not an error someone wants to see at 552 am. With almost 300 DC fast charging sessions, you aren't a charging newbie, so it isn't user error.

I'd be interested in what you find out from Porsche service, and whether these problems continue. Thanks for your posts.
 


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Stealth went into service today, soonest I could schedule an appointment with a loaner.
I’m wishing him well.
 
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Just got word from Porsche Service, they had issues connecting to the control units. System was reporting that the ignition was not on. They investigated and found that I had (just recently) routed my Dashcam into fusebox. I used unused sockets so I thought I was fine; however, they said they found new plugs for me to use and all is working.

They tested my battery (on request) say its at 90% health. This is at 45,000 miles (72,400 km).

No charge, I am very happy with my service center (Stevens Creek Porsche).
I need to take for a couple fast charges to be sure, but I think this sounds plausible.
I will try to post an update after tests and with the fuse sockets to use for dashcams/radar detectors.

In hindsight, I should have thought of disconnecting the camera power supply when I was having issues. Sigh...
 

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Just got word from Porsche Service, they had issues connecting to the control units. System was reporting that the ignition was not on. They investigated and found that I had (just recently) routed my Dashcam into fusebox. I used unused sockets so I thought I was fine; however, they said they found new plugs for me to use and all is working.

They tested my battery (on request) say its at 90% health. This is at 45,000 miles (72,400 km).

No charge, I am very happy with my service center (Stevens Creek Porsche).
I need to take for a couple fast charges to be sure, but I think this sounds plausible.
I will try to post an update after tests and with the fuse sockets to use for dashcams/radar detectors.

In hindsight, I should have thought of disconnecting the camera power supply when I was having issues. Sigh...
thanks for the update - this is all very interesting.
 


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Well, sadly over optimistic, picked up car 6pm, battery very cold 50F from sitting outside. Routed to a 150kW fast charger near my home 30min away. Battery got to near 80F, very impressive. Charging session lasted 10sec before error and car left in state where I could not start a new session. Disconnected dash cam completely, tried new session on 2 different units. Locked car and left car waiting 15min.

Then started new session waited 2 min while seeing charging speed at 144kW then stopped again with error light on car, Charger did not report any error. But trying to start session again on a different unit you’ll do the same behavior of “Charging Start Error” with Error code 40_00H_0.

Service notified, I will keep posting updates.
 

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Well, sadly over optimistic, picked up car 6pm, battery very cold 50F from sitting outside. Routed to a 150kW fast charger near my home 30min away. Battery got to near 80F, very impressive. Charging session lasted 10sec before error and car left in state where I could not start a new session. Disconnected dash cam completely, tried new session on 2 different units. Locked car and left car waiting 15min.

Then started new session waited 2 min while seeing charging speed at 144kW then stopped again with error light on car, Charger did not report any error. But trying to start session again on a different unit you’ll do the same behavior of “Charging Start Error” with Error code 40_00H_0.

Service notified, I will keep posting updates.
this makes @daveo4EV sad.
 

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But trying to start session again on a different unit you’ll do the same behavior of “Charging Start Error” with Error code 40_00H_0.
Sorry your car is still having problems. Is the error text and code displayed on the charging station display, or on the Taycan?
 
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Sorry your car is still having problems. Is the error text and code displayed on the charging station display, or on the Taycan?
This message is on the charger. I have never gotten a diagnostic message within vehicle except “Electrical system error Service necessary”.
 
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I did have one successful fast charge after this. My technique was to not let the vehicle precondition and then the charging was slow, but did not fault averaged about 90 kW.

I am now planning for a potential trip to Los Angeles again, so I will have many opportunities to refine my charging techniques to not trigger this fault. I am hoping that my education will also lead Porsche to a resolution when I bring the vehicle in the beginning of the year. They did offer me an appointment on December 19; however, I felt that Germany would likely be in holiday mode, and very little would get done so I decided to wait for the new year.
 

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Just a thought. If keeping the car locked and saying away from it fixes the problem , it sounds like rebooting the car's electronics does the trick (be it temporarily, your car probably does need something fixed). You could probably do it quicker than 30 minutes, probably quicker than 15 minutes once you get used to doing it, by disconnecting the car's power for maybe 30 seconds. That would require disconnecting the 12V battery and probably the HV battery (there is a lockable HV lockout safety disconnect in the frunk - it's not actually connected to high voltage, it just disconnects the contactor controls AFAIK making it impossible for the HV battery to be engaged). Coming from Tesla world, there was a time where doing such hard reboots were very helpful with Teslas too (haven't had to do one in years though, their software got better).
 

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Just got word from Porsche Service, they had issues connecting to the control units. System was reporting that the ignition was not on. They investigated and found that I had (just recently) routed my Dashcam into fusebox. I used unused sockets so I thought I was fine; however, they said they found new plugs for me to use and all is working.

They tested my battery (on request) say its at 90% health. This is at 45,000 miles (72,400 km).

No charge, I am very happy with my service center (Stevens Creek Porsche).
I need to take for a couple fast charges to be sure, but I think this sounds plausible.
I will try to post an update after tests and with the fuse sockets to use for dashcams/radar detectors.

In hindsight, I should have thought of disconnecting the camera power supply when I was having issues. Sigh...
Can you let us know which fuse locations they used?
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