Tesla Supercharger FAIL

[Kal-El]

I went skiing today and used the Porsche Navigation system for routing. I left my house with 100% and arrived 124 miles later at this Tesla Supercharger in Frisco, Colorado with 24% (the original estimate was 33% but I had a roof ski rack and drove 10 mph over the speed limit). My plan was to charge up to 80% so I could ski and then make the trip back home without another charging stop, knowing the return trip would use less electricity as I would be heading down from the mountain.

This Tesla Supercharger should certainly work with the Macan EV, it is a Magic Dock (one that has the adapter built in for non Tesla cars).

I arrived and plugged in using the Tesla adapter. The car did it's plug-n-charge handshake and immediately displayed a red "Charging not possible. Please note the information on the charging infrastructure". The Tesla Supercharger displayed an unhelpful error message. I moved to another supercharger and tried again, same thing. I then tried using my official Porsche adapter, no luck. Tried using the Tesla app to start the session instead of plug-n-charge, no go. Tried using a credit card right on the Tesla Supercharger, again no luck. Then I tried another charger that a Tesla had just successfully used...again no luck.

I looked for other stations and out of pure luck it turned out there was an Electrify America charging station 1/2 mile away. I went there, plugged in, charged to 80% and enjoyed my day.

It's frustrating and nerve-wracking not knowing if the charger will work until you get there.

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[dieterf]

Another thing to be aware of is that not all Tesla Superchargers are available for non Tesla cars. I had a similar situation at the Lake Geneva, WI Tesla supercharger. There was a sign that stated “Tesla only….” and my Macan EV was not able to charge!

 

[dbsb3233]

Another thing to be aware of is that not all Tesla Superchargers are available for non Tesla cars. I had a similar situation at the Lake Geneva, WI Tesla supercharger. There was a sign that stated “Tesla only….” and my Macan EV was not able to charge!

That Frisco Supercharger he's talking about is supposed to be working for non-Teslas though. There's either something wrong with that station, or (hopefully not) his car.

I always check the Tesla map, setting the filters to "NACS Partner" and "Other EV", with "Tesla" unchecked (Teslas-only). I like that better than the app map. I save that website page to my phone's home page too, as an icon next to my Tesla app.

https://www.tesla.com/findus?bounds...,nacs_superchargers,coming_soon_superchargers

 

[ron_b]

@Kal-El you did an excellent job of trying to diagnose the problem. And a magic dock station I thought would’ve been a slam dunk on success. I would worry that your car has an issue with going into split pack mode, which is how it deals with a 500 V charger like Tesla superchargers. Have you been successful at any other superchargers?

 

[vanjwilson]

I happened to use both Frisco supercharger stations near Frisco back last summer, when I was staying in Dillon for a week to do some hiking. At that time, I used the Magic Dock adapter on each station, and had to activate them with the Tesla app.

Sorry to hear that it's not working now. Anecdotally, it seems to me that there are more issues with Tesla superchargers lately than in the past. (I drove a Model Y from 2021 to 2025.) Maybe that's to be expected with the growth of the network and opening it up to non-Teslas, but it is still frustrating.

 

[Kal-El]

@Kal-El Have you been successful at any other superchargers?

I've had success at other superchargers (both Magic Dock and using the official Porsche adapter) by using the Tesla app. These charging sessions were before Porsche announced plug-n-charge supported Tesla superchargers. This was the first try since the announcement and also the first time my Porsche navigation system routed me to a Tesla supercharger.

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