2019 i3S stopped charging - possibly fried neighbor's Level 2 charger

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mrjoelrobinson

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Joined
Oct 18, 2024
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2
I've had my 2019 I3S just over a month now and it's been fabulous. I've only used the level 1 charger and haven't had any issues until last night. at 12:30 am after charging a few hours, it stopped charging. I thought there might be too many competing loads on the circuit so I unplugged a few things and tried again. It tripped the GFCI breaker in the outlet. I reset it, it tripped the breaker this time. I tried another outlet/circuit, it tripped the GFCI. I tried a non GFCI outlet--it gave a red light fault on the EVSE. I tried another 110v EVSE at a neighbor's house, tripped the breaker. I tried his level 2 charger, tripped the breaker. An hour later, he said his Chargepoint charger will not supply power.

I've googled about this and found a few possibilities:
--dead 12v battery? Car otherwise works perfectly and shows no signs of weak battery.
--dead onboard charger/circuit board

My plan is to call the dealer Monday/tomorrow and get that ball rolling. In the meantime, I'd love to learn more about what to try, do, etc. myself.

PS: I tried connecting a OBDLink MX+ to the car but was unsuccessful actually communicating w/the car. If I can get that to connect, I'm interested to learn if there are any useful diagnostic messages, etc.
 
My car has the same issue. It’s a 2019 i3s just like yours. You cannot ‘fry’ a home charger with a faulty car, they’re effectively just power switches with a little bit of control logic alongside. I have it booked in for early January to be fixed under the used car warranty. I have a spare 12V battery that I haven’t installed yet, as I don’t believe a weak 12V battery could cause this. My suspicion is that the KLE is faulty. I got codes from the car but nothing that hinted at what the fault could be. My Zappi reports ‘RCD fault’ just before the house RCD trips, which makes me think I’m dealing with an internal short in the car. The car thinks it is still prepping to charge when the breaker trips (the orange light around the charge port is still flashing when the EVSE goes offline).
 
Well, I would have thought the same but when I asked to use my neighbor's very new Chargepoint home charger, it suddenly stopped working and never recovered. It's now being replaced under warranty by Chargepoint.

An update on my car: The dealer ran 2 days of diagnostics and determined that because 4 of the internal temperature sensors in the KLE have stopped returning sensible values, the KLE will need to be replaced for about $5000 USD. I've found their parts markup to be quite a bit higher than other dealers in the area so I'm negotiating for lower prices or will pick up my car and relocate to dealer with better pricing.
 
I think that’s probably coincidental. My charger still charges other cars. I’ll update if the dealer finds my KLE is fried like yours is. You can certainly get it fixed for well under $5000 - Wisely in the UK charge under £2k for a replacement KLE (presuming a secondhand part).

I will be interested to hear if your L1 charger is still working once the car is repaired - if so, it would tend to confirm that your neighbour’s charger died a natural early death (which is why we have warranties) rather than being somehow killed by the car.
 
Last edited:
My update as promised - the KLE had indeed died, and the dealer replaced it for €2500 (which I fortunately didn’t need to pay, still being within my 6-month used warranty). All working perfectly now.
 
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