Hyundai Ioniq Won't Charge - Top Tips!

You’re about to leave for work, and your Hyundai Ioniq hasn’t changed. What an absolute pain! I’ve been a mechanic for 25 years and will explain why your car won’t charge.

The most common reasons your Hyundai Ioniq won’t charge include:

Faulty electrics at home
Fault in your Hyundai Ioniq
Extreme weather conditions
Scheduled Charging

This article will examine why your Ioniq won’t charge, diagnose the problem, and how to fix it.

Infographic - Hyundai Ioniq won't charge

Faulty Electrics at Home

The most common reason your Hyundai Ioniq didn’t charge is to do with an electrical fault, either:

At the Wall Connection
In your cable

At the Wall Connection

The first thing to do is check your charge lights to give you an indication of whether there is any power going to your charge port.

Light	Meaning
Green Light ON	Charging is progress
Green Light OFF	Charging is complete
Green Light Blinking	Scheduled charge time is programmed, but currently not charging
Red Light Blinking	Charging malfunction

To then check if your wall charger is the problem, you will need to diagnose a few items first:

Is there power?
Has the circuit tripped?

Is there power?

There may be no power in your wall socket. You can quickly check this by plugging something else in. If an additional electrical item works in this socket, your charging cable might demand too much power.

There are different options available on your power cable. Ensure you have the correct one selected. You might have noticed that the plug at the wall is getting warm to the touch. No plug should gain heat. You should contact an electrician to come and have a look at your setup.

Never attempt to fix anything electrical yourself unless you are qualified to do so.

If, on the other hand, you plug something else and it doesn’t work either, then the power to the socket has been cut.

Has the circuit tripped?

Go to the circuit board and check if a switch has tripped. If it has, it may well be your cable, or there may be a circuit overload. Have a look around where you are charging and see if anything unusual has been plugged in. If there is, unplug them and try and reset the trip switch.

If there is not, the problem could be your cable.

Problem in the Cable

Your charging cable is made of sturdy stuff. The plastic outer is designed to be flexible and durable but must also be cared for. The biggest culprit for damaging your cable is the wheels of your car. Repeatedly driving across the cable causes damage to the outer casing and, indeed, the interior wiring. This, in turn, causes your car not to charge or intermittently charge.

Unplug your cable at both ends. Give it a good check-over. You need to order a new one if you find anything cracks, tears, or breaks. The cable transfers high voltage to your car, and any crack can expose a live wire which can cause serious injury.

Another common Ioniq charging issue is a cable that won’t disconnect, I wrote about that problem recently – Ioniq won’t unplug

Fault in your Hyundai Ioniq

If the fault is not because of lack of power, there might be a fault in your Ioniq. I’m not expecting you to fix it, but sometimes it’s good to have the heads up before you take your car to a service center. If you sit in your car and start the charge cycle, you should be able to hear the cable at the charge port engaging or locking.

The charger and your car have to sync for the charge to begin. The charger is basically checking with your car’s onboard computer that all is correct and good before it releases the power.

If the charging cable can’t lock, then the charging will be aborted.

A known fault is the failure of the actuator in the locking mechanism. This is generally a fuse that is blown. If you feel comfortable doing this, you can change it yourself or book your car into a service center.

The sound you are listening for is a slight click on and off. If you can hear this and charging doesn’t engage, there’s a high possibility the actuator relay has failed. If you check your fuse area, you should be able to feel which one has blown as it also will be clicking. You can easily swap out another fuse (such as indicators) and see does this solve your issue.

If it does, return the fuse where you found it and buy a new one for your actuator. They are widely available in auto parts stores and online. Just take note of the reference number on the fuse.

Scheduled Charging

The other Ioniq problem to watch out for is Scheduled Charging. There are quite a few issues with people coming out to their car in the morning, and Scheduled Charging hasn’t happened. This is a real problem. If you have enough charge to get you to a fast charger, then you have an extra unplanned stop on your commute.

But you may not have enough to get you to a fast charger, or they may not be one close enough, so you’ll have to work from home or call to say you’ll be late because of transport issues.

The Scheduled Charging is set up through the app or your in-car screen settings. However, it seems to have a glitch that unless you also set a Departure time, it won’t kick in. It calculates what time you need to leave and then works backward to charge your car. If no departure time is set, it won’t start charging.

This is only the case for AC charging, not DC, but people rarely have DC available at home.

You may need a software update to solve the glitches. The new Ioniq 5 has introduced OTA (Over the Air) updates. Initially, the OTA download needs to be saved to an external drive and then uploaded to your car, but after you have done this, the OTA will kick in. This is a significant step forward as not everyone is tech enough to upload software.

New cars with new tech have bugs and glitches, but just like your smartphone or laptop, an update will iron these problems out.

Extreme Weather Conditions

EVs, in general, don’t respond well to extreme weather conditions. Below-zero temperatures reduce the car’s ability to charge properly. It will take longer to reach a charge, but if the temperature outside is too low, it may decide not to charge at all. Hyundai Ioniq is powered by Lithium-Ion batteries. Li-ion is made of ionized liquid. If the liquid freezes in a particular cell, then that cell will die and no longer be able to receive a charge.

Although not all cells die, the charge capacity will be significantly reduced. Your Ioniq has a 5-year warranty with unlimited mileage and Lithium-Ion protection for eight years.

But Hyundai will know by doing a computer read that your car has continually been exposed to severe weather while charging.

The same goes for extreme heat in the desert but to a lesser extent, as the cells are not freezing.

I’ve covered a few of the other common Hyundai issues which you hopefully won’t experience, but if you do, we have you covered with these posts:

If you are curious about other EV models, check out the EV FAQ category.

Hyundai Ioniq Won’t Charge – Top Tips!