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Charger stuck in car

27K views 63 replies 27 participants last post by  Graeme  
#1 ·
I charged my car as usual overnight and this morning I tried to remove the charging cable from the car (pressed release button) and nothing happened. No green light to indicate safe removal. I then noticed there was no power to the charging cable because the circuit breaker had tripped. It’s done this before but the charger unlocked as usual. I flipped it back and restored power but still nothing. All other functions of the car are normal.
Has anyone ever experienced this?
 
#11 ·
Hoping this isn’t OP’s situation, but I’ve had the lock pin solenoid fail on multiple other brands’ EVs. On my old i3, there was enough clearance to just use a key to push the lock pin back in to release the cable; on my wife’s eGolf, the clearance was too tight so I had to fashion a long tool with an L bend at the end.

I haven’t investigated the Polestar and hope to not ever have to…
 
#18 ·
It doesn't exist - the manual is wrong.

I'd try the "walk away with it locked, leave it for 10 minutes, come back, unlock the car and try again". Go well away from the car (20m+) so that it double-locks and can't "see" the key.

If that doesn't work, and you have no lights at all on the charger socket, given that it tripped your charger I'd be a bit worried that the on-board charger has failed. Hopefully not!
 
#19 ·
Thanks to everyone, but none of that worked.
I talked to "Central Command" via the connect button several times yesterday, and a young woman told me this: there is a tiny button at the 12 o'clock position above the charger socket that you can press with a tool such as a screwdriver to release it. It worked. However, now my car will not charge. Either the charger end of the cable is fried, or it's the car 😩
 
#20 ·
Sounds like the on-board charger has indeed failed then :-( Thank you for letting us know about the button, I'll add that to the Frequently Asked Questions page (link).
 
#25 ·
it makes you a wonder whether at some point they changed the location of release element from inside trunk to outside …or the other way around? … because there should be a manual release of some sort.
 
#29 ·
I don’t see any sort of release on my vehicle, whether in the charge port area or inside (I didn’t bother to remove inside carpet area though as I don’t see how this could be a serious backup if you have to disassemble part of the car)… so I have no idea what is going on here…🤔
 
#35 ·
It's my belief that the pin usually is in the "down" position as shown in my photo when the charging plug is NOT connected, and the charging plugh might be pushing it up when it locks in. Hence to unlock, we might have to push the locking pin down. Pure conjencture on my part, will test and let you know.

@Katherine Birchenough, can you let u sknow what you did to release the charging plug? Is it like I said above, or soemthing else?
 
#36 ·
I am dying to try it again … it will be very tight in there, whether pushing in the pin or sliding it up (that might be impossible in my case)…I wonder whether the engineer who designed have tried it themselves…🙄
 
#37 ·
So I just tried it and it works. It’s not the greatest access, but any smaller screwdriver or longer small enough object will do … you need to push the pin in. After that the led goes briefly red, then you hear the motorized lock to unlock and you can pull the charging plug.

Sounds to me that the pin just controls a switch, meaning, it is not truly a mechanical aka cable release type. Which makes me think that if the car totally loses electrical power with the cable plugged in, you are out of luck, unless the lock is really powered from the charging cable … I guess it could be tested further.
 
#40 ·
Well, I was going to quickly reply that, surely no, the key must be in vicinity or car left unlocked, which is not something you would obviously do elsewhere than home, but …. I actually went to test it and to my surprise, yes, you can push the pin regardless whether car is locked or not and whether you have a key on you or not … so, you are correct, anyone can push the pin and unplug you, if they know about it.

Now, the million dollar question ….. is this a feature by design, or another bug? I can see it could be argued either way….🤷🏼‍♂️
 
#42 ·
Not a concern for me either … I would rather have a way to release a stuck plug than not … but, I still am not sure whether this would work with car power being down. I doubt it, because it’s a motorized release.