Capot ou connecteur haute tension non verrouillé

A high-voltage cover, service plug or connector has not been fully closed and latched, so the interlock circuit that runs through it is open.

The interlock is a thin wire threaded through every orange cover and every high-voltage plug on the vehicle, in series. Its whole purpose is to be broken before anything live can be touched: open the loop anywhere and the car refuses to close its contactors, so the system de-energises before a hand reaches it. That design makes this cause both very common and, usually, very cheap.

It is overwhelmingly a consequence of work rather than of age, and the vehicle's history tells you so. A pack inspection, a coolant repair, an inverter or charger job, bodywork near the battery, even a thorough inspection — anything that involved lifting a cover puts this on the list. Connectors of this kind deliberately have a two-stage action, seating first and latching second, so one that looks and feels fitted can be a single movement short, and that is precisely the state that produces the code.

The practical consequence is that a car which will not power on straight after high-voltage work is very often this, and the fix is free. Saying so when booking it in can turn a recovery into a two-minute job.

And the rule that goes with it has no exceptions: the loop is never bridged. Jumping an interlock to get a vehicle moving removes the guarantee that the pack can be de-energised, and the next person to work on it — perhaps at a roadside, perhaps after a collision — will be trusting a safety system that is no longer there.