EV general discussion

So off and a little journey on Monday from Liverpool to Hull , Tuesday Hull to Middlesbrough then on too Newcastle Wednesday and finally drive home Wednesday evening . Should be fun and a fair few charges
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Excitedly wating for my new Volvo EX30 Twin Performance getting delivered on Thursday, will miss the Tesla M3LR its replacing but lease is up. Read a few issues about the software side of things however I'm sure this will be fixed with OTA updates. Anyone else got one?
 
Rilot said:
I wouldn't have one at that price. Rather take a Tesla TBH and benefit for the Superchargers. I think this is half of the problem. People just don't want to pay even £40k for them.
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a Taycan for 40k? I must admit i prefer the Etron but i would take a 3 year old Taycan for £40k over a new model 3 personally.

that said apples to apples a 3 year old model 3 would be closer to 20k. Moral of the story.............. unless you get some heavily subsidised new car on a lease............ dont buy a new car, buy a 3 year old one but with a warranty.
 
I have a question about Octopus intelligent, ive just plugged my Phev at home, and octopus has created a smart charging plan, mainly for 23.30 to 5am, but its also showing a plan for 11am to 12pm, does this mean the car will be charged at the cheap rate this morning aswell? if so I better tell the Mrs to get washing machine on and get lunch & tea done early :p
 
Tinders said:
I have a question about Octopus intelligent, ive just plugged my Phev at home, and octopus has created a smart charging plan, mainly for 23.30 to 5am, but its also showing a plan for 11am to 12pm, does this mean the car will be charged at the cheap rate this morning aswell? if so I better tell the Mrs to get washing machine on and get lunch & tea done early :p
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Yes. As long as you leave the car plugged in, all charge slots shown in the app will be at the cheap rate.
 
Bug One said:
Yes. As long as you leave the car plugged in, all charge slots shown in the app will be at the cheap rate.
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indeed. intelligent octopus is truly incredible and (forgetting house batteries for a second) if your car needs charging it is an absolute no brainer to always plug the car in and let octopus control it, and if you are lucky you will get a load of bonus time slots.

House batteries complicate things a little, as you dont want your car flattening your battery at an unexpected slot. and if you have the chops for it, then there is a piece of software called home assistant which can help there, but i have not got myself to look at that yet.
 
Just be mindful that the slots can change at the last minute.

Before I got my automatons working on my battery, I’d program it when Octopus gave me the initial schedule only to find they had changed it a couple of hours later.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Just be mindful that the slots can change at the last minute.

Before I got my automatons working on my battery, I’d program it when Octopus gave me the initial schedule only to find they had changed it a couple of hours later.
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i am no expert but my understanding is you can get Home assistant to update on the fly based on the timeslots provided by octopus.

so if your timeslot moves, home assistant will pick that up on the fly and then can either stop your battery discharging or force charge it for those slots.

a mate of mines brother has apparently tied his whole house into home assistant, running his car and home battery charging and discharging, as well as his heatpump and air con, so if energy goes cheap he can warm or cool his house on the cheap as well. my mate keeps promising to talk with him and then do his own house as well, at which point i shall ply him with beer if he sorts me out as well. i have an old raspberry pi 3 doing very little which i think could run homeassistant.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Just be mindful that the slots can change at the last minute.

Before I got my automatons working on my battery, I’d program it when Octopus gave me the initial schedule only to find they had changed it a couple of hours later.
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Check against your bill (I always screenshot it and check against the bill).

The slots in the app might disappear after that slot period has passed, but they should still count, as long as the car is still plugged in (or force it to recalculate by changing the parameters)
 
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I use home assistant now, it’s pretty simple to set up a basic automation once you understand what the Octopus API is doing.

There is an on/off flag on the API which is set when a cheap slot is active so you don’t need to worry about its schedule so much.

My automations are is essentially ‘if the flag changes from off to on, charge battery between 00:00 and 23:59’, if the flag changes from on to off set to charge between 11.30 and 5.30’.

The issue was it was on a ‘I’ll sort that out later list’ as 95% of my charging happens between 11.30 and 5.30 when I use grid power anyway.

The third time the battery got rinsed, I pulled my finger out and sorted it :p

Out heat pump goes in next week so I’ll be doing the same with that too.


Bug One said:
Check against your bill (I always screenshot it and check against the bill).

The slots in the app might disappear after that slot period has passed, but they should still count, as long as the car is still plugged in.
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It’s not that the slots disappear after they finish. It’s that when you plug in at 7pm, the app says it will charge at 11pm and you programme the battery accordingly.

At 10.45 you notice your car has been charging for 1.5 hours and has rinsed your home battery because Octopus changed the schedule.

Now it’s not so much of a problem in the evening as the battery will recharge overnight, but when they change it to say start at 10pm and finish at 4am to starting at 1.30 and finish at 7am, that’s where it gets annoying.

It’s elementary now anyway as I pulled my finger out and sorted home assistant to stop the battery discharging.
 
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I had considered fully electric after years of having diesel cars, so this time i moved to hybrid and get to enjoy 50 miles of electric for town and work driving and save the petrol for longer journeys. It weird having the quietness but got used to it after a while. Would i go fully electric maybe once the network of chargers become more available. We only have 5 in our town and they are always in use. So reliant on home charging for the 4 hours i need to charge the battery in my car.
 
If you’ve got charging at home, you’ll never need the chargers in your local town.

Up until late last year there were only a few token 7kw chargers in supermarket car parks with 90 min time limits in the town I live, basically useless. It’s never been a concern over the last 3 years and I do some decent milage.

You’ll seldom use chargers within 75 miles of where you live in reality. Where you want/need them is in places you go out on the road.

The kicker is paying 7-9p vs paying 30-90p, you are always going to pick 7-9p.
 
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Viberious said:
I had considered fully electric after years of having diesel cars, so this time i moved to hybrid and get to enjoy 50 miles of electric for town and work driving and save the petrol for longer journeys. It weird having the quietness but got used to it after a while. Would i go fully electric maybe once the network of chargers become more available. We only have 5 in our town and they are always in use. So reliant on home charging for the 4 hours i need to charge the battery in my car.
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What PHEV do you have that gives 50 miles on pure EV. My 330e is just creeping up to 21 miles with the milder weather. Still worth it with the Octopus cheap tariff, esp for local driving.
 
Tinders said:
What PHEV do you have that gives 50 miles on pure EV. My 330e is just creeping up to 21 miles with the milder weather. Still worth it with the Octopus cheap tariff, esp for local driving.
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I moved it the new Range Rover Sport p460e. Some what massive move from my BMW X3 40d I had before but I had looked at the new Porsche Mecan EV and the wife didn’t like it.
 
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