Why is the electric car not getting power?
4 Answers
The reasons and solutions for an electric car not getting power are as follows: Battery Water Loss Fault: The main symptoms are reduced battery capacity, leading to thermal runaway and deformation of the positive plate, with the battery casing expanding. Pry open the cover plate on the electric car battery; remove the rubber caps to expose the vent holes; observe through the vent holes whether the battery appears dry. If it is, add water. Additionally, it is recommended to use a medical disposable syringe and secondary distilled water for refilling, operating carefully and adding more if insufficient. Battery Imbalance Fault: The main symptom is that one or more small batteries in the battery pack have issues, causing other good batteries to fail to function properly. For battery imbalance faults, users can identify batteries with consistent capacity, voltage, self-discharge, and internal resistance to use together.
This issue just happened to my electric car last week! At first, I thought the charging station was broken, but switching to another one didn’t help. Later, I found out that the charging port might have been clogged with dust, causing poor contact—cleaning it with a cotton swab fixed the issue. It could also be that the onboard charger overheated and went into protection mode; waiting half an hour before retrying worked. If the charging gun shows no response at all, check the 12V auxiliary battery—low voltage can cause the charging system to fail. Of course, the worst-case scenario is a fault in the high-voltage battery pack, which would trigger the "turtle light" on the dashboard. I’d suggest cleaning the charging port first; if that doesn’t work, contact the service center to read the error codes.
It's really frustrating when an electric vehicle suddenly refuses to charge. I've encountered this twice: the first time was due to incorrect charging schedule settings - the car thought I wanted to charge at 3 AM; the second time the charging gun's locking mechanism was stuck, and there was no 'click' sound when unlocking. I recommend checking the charging settings on the central control screen to see if scheduled charging is enabled. Try unplugging and reinserting the charging gun, making sure the latch engages properly. Also, it's best to preheat the battery before charging in winter, especially when temperatures drop below freezing, as the battery management system may refuse to charge to protect the cells. When using public chargers, pay attention to on-screen prompts - errors like 'insulation fault' or 'handshake failure' require professional assistance.
EV charging faults depend on specific symptoms. No green light on the charger after plugging in? It might be a grounding wire issue, common with old sockets. Charging gun indicator flashing red and green alternately? Most likely a communication error—just restart the charging process. If charging stops abruptly, first check if the APP has charging anomaly alerts enabled, as some vehicles may automatically cut power. An easily overlooked cause: incompatibility between the 2015 and 2015+ national charging protocols, where older vehicles may fail to handshake with newer chargers. If all else fails, press and hold the emergency release lever near the charging port to forcibly disconnect, then restart the vehicle.
