1. Getting into the Car. To get in the car, there is an emergency (physical) key inside the key fob, which is used to open the driver door using the hidden key hole under the door handle.
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2. Emergency Trunk-Opening Terminal. Once inside, you then need to supply 12 volts to a special terminal inside the fuse box, which allows you to pop the trunk open using the button in the door sill. The special terminal is located in the driver footwell fuse box. It’s red with a drawing of an open trunk on it. You need to pull this red terminal all the way out, and put the red/positive jumper cable on it, and the black/negative jumper cable on the exposed metal catch in the door jamb (or any good chassis ground point). Once power is applied, it will allow you to pop the trunk using the button in the door sill.
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3. Getting to the Battery. To get to the battery, you need to pull off the black plastic cover at the front of the trunk. See pictures below. No tools needed, very simple.
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4. Charging the Battery. To ‘reactivate’ the battery, you need to use a battery charger or jumper cables from another car to charge the battery, using all standard safety precautions. Red/positive goes on the positive battery terminal, and the black/negative clamp goes to the special chassis ground post show in the pictures below. It should only take 10 minutes or so for the car to spring back to life. At that point, you can start the car and drive it to further re-charge the battery.
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5. Warning about Trickle Chargers. One word of caution: most trickle chargers don’t deliver power if they don’t detect a battery, meaning they don’t work well (if at all) for reactivating a lithium battery once it’s shut down. Read the manual for your charger, as most (CTek and Porsche) have special modes that claim to deliver constant 12v even if no battery is detected. I tried for a long time and could never get my Porsche charger to do that, and finally gave up and used a 30-year-old (non-smart) 50 amp battery charger. Another car and a pair of jumper cables would work just as well.
6. Check for Warning Lights. Depending on circumstances, you may or may not need to get dash warning lights cleared at the dealer. In my case, once the battery woke up, all was fine with no warning lights on the dash. Others have reported warning lights remaining on, which the dealer had to clear. Still others say they had warnings for a week or more, which eventually cleared themselves. Either way, driving to the dealer after reviving the battery beats towing it to the dealer.
