Cause
Short circuit in a high voltage component
A short inside a high voltage component — motor windings, inverter, cabling or the pack itself. The system monitors insulation resistance continuously, so it detects a path to the vehicle body long before anything external suggests a problem.
The response is to open the contactors and shut down, which is the protection working exactly as designed: the vehicle stops and is safe. Do not attempt to diagnose this without the manufacturer's isolation procedure and the correct equipment. An insulation fault means the high voltage system may not be isolated from surfaces a person can touch, which is the one fault on a vehicle that can be lethal. Moisture ingress is a common cause — a failed seal on a component or connector — and it can be intermittent with weather, which makes it more dangerous rather than less.
Typically specialist work. Needs equipment or training most home workshops do not have.
Codes this can cause (1)
Codes where this is a likely explanation first, rather than merely a possible one.
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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