alexlear

If you're locked to a CCS charger and other solutions haven't worked, pull and re-insert fuse 5 (charger) and 10 (DC/DC) in the under-hood fusebox on the passenger side(US). This should reset the charge port door lock and allow you to remove the handle. See photo below. Hopefully this helps you out of a bad situation. If you'd like to know how I figured this out and how Audi and Electrify America support failed and left us stranded, continue reading.

We recently had the worst road trip experience of our lives in our 2019 Audi e-tron. We had to abort our holiday trip last week after substantial problems with multiple EA locations and the e-tron charge port plug getting permanently locked to the car. The problems were compounded by poor Audi response leaving us stranded (without the option of roadside assistance). Everything I'm posting here are facts. My sincere hope is that Electrify America and Audi (especially) will take these issues seriously.

1st charging stop (electrify america):
- Cement parking barriers are mounted too far from the charger. An e-tron cannot physically connect to these chargers without parking parallel to them. Not just tight cable that puts pressure on the port like the others, this one is impossible to connect.
- Multiple chargers had charge session error
- Finally found a charger that would start (140kw), then dropped to 19kw
- Last one worked and charged but then wouldn't release charge cable.
- Audi assistance didn't know what to do and connected us with the receptionist at a California (we're not in CA by the way) dealership. They didn't know what to do either.
- Electrify america could only reboot the charger. It didn't work but they tried a lot harder than Audi to find a solution.
- We know about the pull string under the hood. We tried it and this didn't work because it wasn't connected on the other end!!! This car recently had charge port seal recall work. Was it not reconnected??
- After 20 minutes of messing with the locks, port door button, and key fob, the charge handle released. I don't know why, something must have reset.

2nd charging stop (electrify america):
- Plugged in and get charge session error (it tells me to unplug and plug in again)
- The charge plug is now locked to the car (THIS TIME PERMANENTLY)
- This starts a process of hours of calls to Audi, electrify america, roadside assistance, and online chat with Audi
- Multiple contacts to Audi were unhelpful, incompetent, and with one instance of severe insensitivity to our stranded situation by joking that they wouldn't want to be in our situation with their car.
- Contacts to Electrify America were in general good, giving lots of suggestions, rebooting charger, and providing general caring about our situation even if they could only do so much from their end.
- Roadside assistance wasn't willing to help because the car wasn't tow-able (they did not care about the people)
- This is getting late on a Saturday, its dark, its cold, our car is locked to a charger (but not charging), and we're 300 miles from home. We are told by Audi support to call back Monday.
- Audi has now given up with no resolution and no plan after about 3 hours. EA is still interested in helping but it appears its a car issue. Our trip is now ruined, we're 200 miles (300 miles routed by charging stations) from an Audi dealership/home, and we can't be towed. Its really grim at this point.
- In desperation, we google the issue and see massive amounts of references to charge port locking on the e-tron but the typical resolutions don't work (most are for level 2 anyway, not DCFC).
- One online solution guide mentions the fuse panel. I reference the user manual and check two fuses (one for the DC/DC converter and the other for the charger). They're ok, but the process of pulling them has reset the charge port lock and when I try the charge handle, it releases after hours of trouble and uncertainty!
- This is a huge relief after what we'd been through but we still needed to charge and that makes us nervous. EA recommended using (only) the CCS charger on the end paired with the chademo port (are they more reliable?). That worked.

3rd charging stop (electrify america):
- Problems with both ports on all 4 chargers.
- They rebooted each one 2-3 times
- Charge session errors
- Red flashing light on e-tron
- Red solid light on e-tron
- EA support rep indicates that there's nothing else to try and he doesn't want to waste more time rebooting chargers. I'm offered a free charging session
- A complete failure
- Unlike most locations, I had barely enough range to get back to the previous charger that was our disaster port locked location.
- At this point we have no faith in charging the e-tron and we go home, carefully charging on the way back but still having problems at each location.
- The holiday trip was interrupted/aborted/ruined


When I bought the e-tron, I was told about the great roadside support and the trip interruption insurance for EVs. None of this was actually provided. We appreciate EA's willingness to help even if it ended badly and the charging network failed us in a critical way. Audi support was bad. Audis inability to support EV drivers and they're lack of empathy for customers that are in a bad situation due to their product needs to be reviewed.

On a side note I saw another thread making light/jokes of the fact that, around the same busy holiday time, Tesla drivers were queued up at the supercharger waiting to charge at a couple of the busiest locations. To that I would say, at least they are able to charge and continue on their holiday trips. On our way home we passed 2 Tesla stations with lots of stalls along the interstate for each EA location that we were scared would fail us.

I think we all received a letter a few months ago referencing a future firmware update for charge port locking. Hopefully, they will fix the car. As for the poor roadside support, they have nothing to be proud of.

A4 Phil

You need to share this on PlugShare for each of the chargers that you tried. This is where EA reviews comments: https://electrek.co/2019/11/26/inter...rica-chargers/

Palazzo explained that the company’s top leadership looks at every single PlugShare comment about an EA charging event. According to Giovanni, 56% of EA check-ins are ranked between 9 and 10 *— and 27% are between 7 and 9. But what gets his attention are the reported problems.
We do a root cause analysis to understand the KPIs for our network. When we have crashes, we define the fixes.

We cluster every single ticket into a category. In each category, it’s time and cost. We need to go on the site immediately and add a fix within 24 hours.

It’s about the team’s ability to understand what’s going on minute by minute.

alexlear

I spent 4 hours on the phone with various Electrify America support staff over the 5 failed location stops that day. If "Top Leadership" at electrify america doesn't know my name and car by heart at this point, I'd be surprised. All issues were discussed at length with each support call. I agree with the plugshare posts but that's for other drivers information and shouldn't be the main point of contact for EA.

Again, I though EA support was good, but they can only do so much and failures of this magnitude are unacceptable.

A4 Phil

Well as for Audi support, apparently there is a Dealer lurking around here somewhere who asks for threads to be pulled, so maybe he will PM you.

The experience sounds awful and the uncertainty would have only compounded the situation. If I were to guess (perhaps optimistically) Audi will want to see your car and you will receive some sort of follow through. What was the dealer follow up by the way after the holiday?

alexlear

I have asked for an appointment in 2 weeks (earliest option). I want them to review the pull string and review the whole charging system. If the charging session errors (displayed on the charger screen) and port "red light" were due to the car charge "hankshake", I'd like to get that fixed. I can charge fine at home so this is just a CCS (possibly EA chargers) issue. There's not many (any) other e-trons in my area so I'm not sure how well my dealer will be able to evaluate the charging system. I'm optimistic though.

2KA6_2.7T

That is terrible experience. The fact that you had issues at every stations, my guess is there is really something wrong with your car.

I did a 1,300 round trip between MI and CT. and stopped at 7 different EA stations - a week after the charge port seal recall, and had only two times where the EVSE is not starting. And the 2nd try works right away -either with the other cable or the adjacent station works right away.
All of them charge at closed to 150 kW and tapper off starting at 80%.

and for the 8,600 miles I have on the odo. the plug release every time with both AC and DC ( including a public J1772 )

After reading your post, now I wonder if I can/should test the two emergency releases before I need to use them. Isn't it that once the release is activated, we are to bring the e-tron in to be checked ?

theo1000

I think the key problem is German philosophy that physically locks the charge cable to the car every single time.

Those who have had EV's long time have said repeatedly that this is truly asinine and silly. It is a minor issue to instantly disconnect power when the charge lever is lifted/depressed. I too had EA charger issue but I have it down to a science now.

- Park parallel to the EVSE, plug in firmly first, then
- activate charger and don't wiggle anything.
- Stop charging on the EVSE. Don't touch anything on the car.
- Wait to hear the click and light on the car to change before unhooking.
- You have bad traffic or bright sunlight or the rain is pouring all of these are not an option.
- you are stuck.

AUDI are you listening. STOP LOCKING THE DARNED CABLE TO THE CAR.

alexlear

In addition to the charge cable not reaching because of the cement barriers, the barriers are too tall. So when you drive your brand new Audi up to the charger in "Efficiency" mode height (because you just got off the interstate), you scrape the front end. It makes me think I'm their beta tester.

(Raised up in the photo to "all road" I think)

biff2bart

I'm in BC Canada and have been using BC Hydro fast Chargers, though they are only 50kw. Still better than nothing. We're supposed to see Electrify Canada start rolling out with limited coverage this coming year.
​​​​​​ So far in a dozen or so DCFC sessions I've had the charger cable not release a few times. I had to use the cord to get it to release. As a side note, if someone could explain the difference between what the red and yellow pull tabs are, that would be great. I'm assuming one is to open the charger cover and the other to release the locking pin, but the manual is not really clear on this.

Anyway, I found that if I end the charging session with the button on the car (instead of the EVSE) then the handshake is complete and the cable will release. On the flip side, once I ended the season on the EVSE and the car charger lights just went dark and wouldn't give any information.

I agree that the pin is probably overkill or maybe should only be engaged if you actually lock the vehicle. For now, it is what it is and it's early days. I would think that we all need to be aware of this: it's not like the E-tron is the only EV in this situation. Other than some of these niggling issues (and I admit that I would be royally pissed if I just went through what the op went through) the car is amazing and so far I'm stoked.

hrc1079

I’ve only used the EA chargers twice and am lucky enough to say the experience has been quite seamless. I’m glad I didn’t run into the issues mentioned above as I’d be extremely frustrated also. The only thing I can fault is that EA and Audi are owned by VW yet the cable barely reaches the car. I’ve had to pull up extremely close to the pole and the cable is still relatively tight connecting in. I don’t know why Audi didn’t shove the charging port at the front of the car or that back. Putting it 1/3 of the way up the car was a poor design. It’s like they only thought of Europe where people are more likely to parallel park