EV general discussion

danlightbulb said:
My octopus account has been a bit weird last few days. It didn't do a meter reading so I did one manually and it said it was higher than expected. I looked at the previous automated reading which didn't tie up with that month's usage so was too low. The manual readings o took yesterday have generated a bill for gas but not for electricity.
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That is exactly what is happening with me at the moment and it is turning into a nightmare to sort out. Octopus customer service is proving useless and is either unwilling or unable to update my account. When I first notified them of a discrepancy between the meter and smart readings I was roughly a months worth of electricity more on the meter than their smart readings. Now it is almost two months worth and they told me yesterday to ignore it and they will just proceed with the smart readings but I am not happy with this as at some point it's going to open me up to a big bill. On top of this they keep fobbing me off about refunding my balance of a grand, making up one excuse after another. Why do I have to ask their permission anyway? It's my money, they aren't paying me interest on my balance so it's better off in my account not theirs!! I am really close to forcing the issue by switching to Tomato's Lifestyle tariff which works out cheaper than Intelligent Go anyway.
 
I somehow missed this nugget of information so I will post it here to hopefully help at least one other person as simple as me!

Octopus Intelligent Go gives the cheaper rate of 7p (I believe it is different per region?) on ALL dynamic/scheduled charging, not just dynamic/scheduled charging between 23:30 and 05:30. For some reason I thought that only charging in the off peak hours gave the cheaper rate.
 
Well between 23:30 - 5:30 static hours cant be dynamic pricing can they - its a fixed time? The hours outside of that is the exactly USP of Intelligent Go over the Go tarriff.

Its deffo part of tweaking how a house can optimise energy use with car charging.
 
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You can download detailed smartmeter readings from Octopus so if you think there is something up might be worth doing that and having a trawl through.
One thing to check is missing readings.

I checked for another reason but when my bill failed to generate I sent them a message and said I think there are missing readings which has caused my bill to fail.
They replied with your your right we have now requested them and bingo next day correct bill was generated.

Part of the issue I think is that with Bulb they had to take on more staff and some are just not as good as others as they have less experience.
 
thought this video was interesting for the VAG phev bik cost of the newer bigger/19Kw batteried 60mile ones versus their predecessor 5% vs 12%bik, offset by luxury car tax, for new gen, in this case.
 
jpaul said:
thought this video was interesting for the VAG phev bik cost of the newer bigger/19Kw batteried 60mile ones versus their predecessor 5% vs 12%bik, offset by luxury car tax, for new gen, in this case.
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TBH the main takeaway for PHEV is that in 2028 it makes jack all difference anyway as they are 18% across the board. Or in other words, RIP PHEV.

Next up for the BIK jump... BEV.

Hopefully I'll have a proper job by then as touring the countries mid priced hotels is wearing thin enough as it is without having to factor in the needs of the car that I'm driving.
 
lordrobs said:
TBH the main takeaway for PHEV is that in 2028 it makes jack all difference anyway as they are 18% across the board. Or in other words, RIP PHEV.
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One last hurrah for anyone wanting a company car that isn't a full EV now really, even better if you can get shot of it after 3 years so you don't have to keep it into the 28/29 tax year.
 
Im glad i switched to EV, so far 4k miles in, and its been a pain free transition. Glad theres a few years left to ride the gravy train! but joking aside, for day to day driving, its such a better way of getting around, effortless.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Well between 23:30 - 5:30 static hours cant be dynamic pricing can they - its a fixed time? The hours outside of that is the exactly USP of Intelligent Go over the Go tarriff.

Its deffo part of tweaking how a house can optimise energy use with car charging.
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Which of course makes perfect sense. I somehow got it into my head that you were getting 1 hour extra over the regular Go tarrif so that you could allow it to pick and chose in those 6 hours when you were getting a charge.

I get around 10% per hour of charging, I am going to have to play around with it and see if I can force "scheduled" charging of 10% in a 1 hour window to force the cheaper rate and make use of it in the house too. I assume if I tried that in peak hours it would just say no slots available or something similar?
 
Tinders said:
Im glad i switched to EV, so far 4k miles in, and its been a pain free transition. Glad theres a few years left to ride the gravy train! but joking aside, for day to day driving, its such a better way of getting around, effortless.
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While I do have a few personal concerns about impacting my time I have genuinely tried to push the EV agenda at our place. A meeting I was in with the decision makers yesterday (not company vehicle related) indicated I may as well have been suggesting that the urinals are swapped out for ones made of 18ct gold.

I hate the term 'FUD' but it's probably the most accurate way of describing the general statements being rolled out.
 
It’s really strange because you’d think they would be looking to lower their operating cost as much as possible and an EV will do that.

You can’t not be impressed with how the well the MG5’s that Cleevely thrash around the country doing mobile car servicing are holding up and how little they cost to run.
 
since jonny had had a taycan ... review by a professional journalist/driver of A290 (would have liked a real differential not artificial braking of inner wheel & less non-defeatable electronic intervention),
accompanying video of him in gt taycan on nurburgrung in the wet speaks for itself on his competence to critique the a290 handling.
 
So what’s the summary based on the CBA factor of following your hobby?

My fear is the A290 is just a slightly less underpowered R5. Will have to do well to offer more than the Born VZ.
 
It will be interesting to see what happens to the open V2 and V3 Tesla Superchargers come 24th November when the charge point regulations take effect. 27 or so will become non-compliant on the 24th as they don’t accept contactless. There is another 20 or so will become non-compliant in April next year.

The options seems to be:

1) Do nothing and play chicken with the regulator.

2) Return the chargers to being Tesla only.

The law seems pretty clear to me, if they don’t accept contactless by the 24th and they remain open to all, fines are due.

Neither outcome is desirable and not just for Tesla. It’s pretty damaging for the government also.

While the legislation was well intentioned, if they enforce, the sites will go back to Tesla only. If they don’t enforce, they’ll look weak.

In any case, having 47 large charging hubs yanked from full public use when you are trying to push the ICE ban forward to 2030 is not going to generate good headlines.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
It will be interesting to see what happens to the open V2 and V3 Tesla Superchargers come 24th November when the charge point regulations take effect. 27 or so will become non-compliant on the 24th as they don’t accept contactless. There is another 20 or so will become non-compliant in April next year.

The options seems to be:

1) Do nothing and play chicken with the regulator.

2) Return the chargers to being Tesla only.

The law seems pretty clear to me, if they don’t accept contactless by the 24th and they remain open to all, fines are due.

Neither outcome is desirable and not just for Tesla. It’s pretty damaging for the government also.

While the legislation was well intentioned, if they enforce, the sites will go back to Tesla only. If they don’t enforce, they’ll look weak.

In any case, having 47 large charging hubs yanked from full public use when you are trying to push the ICE ban forward to 2030 is not going to generate good headlines.
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But way better for Tesla drivers when they don't have to deal with other room-temperature-IQ EV drivers blocking 2-3 bays which show as "free" to other Teslas' nav systems.
 
Would be a right pain for me, as gretna at one end of the country and Havant at the other, are 2 of my most use chargers. Not to mention Stoke. Ive tried to stick to Tesla and Ionity as my main charger networks for public charging as they just seem to work and be fast consistently.
 
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Tinders said:
Would be a right pain for me, as gretna at one end of the country and Havant at the other, are 2 of my most use chargers. Not to mention Stoke. Ive tried to stick to Tesla and Ionity as my main charger networks for public charging as they just seem to work and be fast consistently.
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The Gretna shopping village is V4 so would remain open to all. Havant is V2 but I think it was one of the later sites to open so will be on the list for April.

The chargers at Stoke are a mix of V3 and V4, who knows what will happen there.
 
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