Code FC_w265 was reported by the “DC fast charging” controller in the car. The letter “w” in the middle places it among entries of the warning type.
The control of DC fast charging — CCS, CHAdeMO and the Chinese GB/T standard. These codes describe communication with the charger, isolation tests and connector locking. They appear almost exclusively at fast chargers, not when charging at home.
The car is flagging that something is not right. Driving is usually still possible, but some function may be limited.
This is how the fault is named inside the car's firmware. For codes without a description it is the most precise clue there is — the name itself says what the event is about.
The text below comes from Tesla's technical documentation. We leave it in the original English so that translation cannot shift its meaning.
This alert was formerly named FC_w265_GB_bmsIncompatible_PT in firmware versions prior to 2017.12. If FC_w265_GB_bmsIncompatible_PT appears on the vehicle or in the logs, update the vehicle firmware to the current version.
Copy it exactly, letter and number included. Photographing the screen is safest — codes often differ by a single digit, and mixing them up leads somewhere else entirely.
Some codes clear after a screen restart or after the car sits locked for a few hours. If the code does not come back, it was usually a one-off glitch.
A one-off entry and a code that appears after every drive are two different things. It helps a service centre enormously if you know exactly when it shows up.
With airbags, brakes, steering and high voltage there is no point waiting it out. With the other groups you can watch and see whether the code returns at all.
Error codes are only part of the picture. For cars on TesList you also see battery health pulled straight from the vehicle, plus a price calculator that works out from current listings what a given car is actually worth today.