EV general discussion

[CaptainRAVE]

My wife has just plugged the car in and Octopus Intelligent Go works out the cheap rates.
I can guarantee that if we unplug and plug back in around 8pm it will give us from 21:30.

Amazing! I assume you need a special charger/app that is compatible?

 

[chanjy]

Amazing! I assume you need a special charger/app that is compatible?

Either a charger that is compatible or a car that is compatible, so quite a range of possibility

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Amazing! I assume you need a special charger/app that is compatible?

All the info is on the Octopus site concerning chargers.
It asks questions and will tell you if your car and charger is compatible.
The app is just the straightforward Octopus app.
Zappi also has it's own app.

First one is showing the EV has been done, pretty sure if you had solar panels and a battery they would be there also.
Second picture is when you click on the car.

 

[Demon]

Anyone else getting Octopus iGo constantly splitting overnight charging to lots of slots?

I'm using Teslamate since I got the Model Y to track everything, and in the Octopus app it will charge from 23:30 - 05:30 but in 3-6 slots

Here's the last charging stats reported by the car earlier this week:

The one at the bottom is just plugging in the car, 16 mins before it realises.. but then 6 distinct charging slots.. then the last one is just the Mrs waking the car up before she goes out, so its heating the cabin..

I'll have to capture the Octopus app and correlate it, but it's never just one slot overnight anymore.. it's usually 3-6 from memory
[edit] actually 8 slots is the worst example I can find over the last 3 months..

 

[b0rn2sk8]

The issue with those 16 mins will be at full rate rather than 7p. I’m tight and manually stop the charging when I plug in.

In theory my charger will be on IoG in the next few weeks and I’ll be moving away from octopus integrating with the car to avoid this.

 

[Kenai]

The issue with those 16 mins will be at full rate rather than 7p.

I thought the point of the 'intelligent' tariffs is that the charging will always be at the low rate unless you specifically override it with a 'Charge Immediately' instruction of some sort, regardless of what time the charging is occurring.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I thought the point of the 'intelligent' tariffs is that the charging will always be at the low rate unless you specifically override it with a 'Charge Immediately' instruction of some sort, regardless of what time the charging is occurring.

It’s only cheap when octopus sets a schedule.

If you have a car based integration and the car starts charging immediately when you plug in, it’s effectively a charge immediately and you are paying peak rate until OI kicks in and stops the charging which can take awhile.

Likewise Octopus don’t want you setting a schedule in the car because the car anyways starts charging at say 23.30 which means they can’t use the demand flexibility as effectively. They have sent emails in the past basically saying if you keep the schedule set, they’ll take you off IO and put you on regular Go.

They may not be able to override the schedule in some cars but I can only speak to my own.

 

[Demon]

I thought the point of the 'intelligent' tariffs is that the charging will always be at the low rate unless you specifically override it with a 'Charge Immediately' instruction of some sort, regardless of what time the charging is occurring.

Its that first plug in though, I assume that it's at the full rate until Octopus 'see' the car, stop it charging and schedule the over night slot(s)..

The issue with those 16 mins will be at full rate rather than 7p. I’m tight and manually stop the charging when I plug in.

Interesting, does that work? I agree, having 16 mins at the full rate could be easily avoided, I just didn't want to mess with the detection process..



I'm more worried about the constant stop/start nature overnight.. it's been like this for a while, when I first when to IGo with our ID.3 and in the first few months with the Model Y, it just did one long slot overnight.. but something changed earlier in the year and its now loadsaslots..

 

[Teknobry]

I thought the point of the 'intelligent' tariffs is that the charging will always be at the low rate unless you specifically override it with a 'Charge Immediately' instruction of some sort, regardless of what time the charging is occurring.

Sometimes a delay in it detecting the car is charging and it creating the cheap schedule for you.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Its that first plug in though, I assume that it's at the full rate until Octopus 'see' the car, stop it charging and schedule the over night slot(s)..

Yes it’s the first plug in that’s the issue.

Interesting, does that work? I agree, having 16 mins at the full rate could be easily avoided, I just didn't want to mess with the detection process..

I do get the occasional detection failure but that seems to be a recent thing. The flip side is I’ve also seen some people who don’t stop the charging have detection failures as well and the car has spent a few hours charging at peak rate until they stopped it manually.

 

[Demon]

I'm waiting for the Hypervolt v2 chargers to get their fabled IGo integration firmware update, the detection period is allegedly seconds..

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I'm waiting for the Hypervolt v2 chargers to get their fabled IGo integration firmware update, the detection period is allegedly seconds..

I’ve got the same charger and is what I was referring to in my post.

 

[Tinders]

I had an issue with octopus last week plugged the car in and went on my merry way. Octopus didn’t create a schedule so the car kept charging at full rate till 23.30.

Most of the time I plug in and car starts to charge, schedule is normally created in a max of 10mins so the charging cost at full rate is minimised.

Still it’s not too bad. I paid Tesla 90p a unit yesterday Havant is a bloody rip off. It’s a regular trip for me so I need to find an alternative ultra fast charger. Thankfully it doesn’t come out of my pocket.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Yeh I’ve noticed they have jacked up the pricing at some open super chargers massively for non-members/owners.

Your company would have probably saved by paying the subscription on that single charge as it is only 40-47p/kwh for owner/subscription pricing.

 

[chanjy]

I'm more worried about the constant stop/start nature overnight.. it's been like this for a while, when I first when to IGo with our ID.3 and in the first few months with the Model Y, it just did one long slot overnight.. but something changed earlier in the year and its now loadsaslots..

This makes sense from a grid balancing perspective breaking it up into slots

What are you worried about around the stop/start schedules? I don't see it having any impact on the battery health?

 

[Kenai]

It’s only cheap when octopus sets a schedule.

If you have a car based integration and the car starts charging immediately when you plug in, it’s effectively a charge immediately and you are paying peak rate until OI kicks in and stops the charging which can take awhile.

I suppose it hadn't really occurred to me that such faffing about was a potential side effect with these tariffs, the way they market and advertise it makes it sound very "plug it in and forget about it" unless you specifically tell it to do something different in the app.

When their FAQs say things like "as long as you don’t bump charge you’ll always be on the off-peak rate" it seems a bit cheeky that you might actually get short on peak durations after plugging in without specifically bump charging, just because it needs to catch up and figure out what's going on.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

I do plug in and forget mine now, it adds 45% so I plug in when battery at half. Most commute days to be fair. And that’s it.

All this reviewing the slots and usages etc is too much effort and masks the simplicity for the typical driver. That said I’m 4 years into EV now… fuel remains and utter chore compared to charging the car in 20secs.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I suppose it hadn't really occurred to me that such faffing about was a potential side effect with these tariffs, the way they market and advertise it makes it sound very "plug it in and forget about it" unless you specifically tell it to do something different in the app.

When their FAQs say things like "as long as you don’t bump charge you’ll always be on the off-peak rate" it seems a bit cheeky that you might actually get short on peak durations after plugging in without specifically bump charging, just because it needs to catch up and figure out what's going on.

It’s a side effect of the implementation of the tariff and how it integrates with the car. It’s doing something with the car charging API which isn’t how it was originally intended to be used.

If you’ve integrated IO with a charger you don’t get these issues as the charger has software which is specifically written to integrate with OI and it knows not to charge the car when it’s plugged in and in ‘Octopus’ mode.

The car integrations are at the whim of whatever API controls the manufacturer has provided (if any at all) and they’ll be limitations on how they can use them and how often they and poll the API.

They are definitely not the ideal solution and I doubt car manufacturers really see it as their problem to solve at the moment. I would also expect them to charge for API access for commercial use which energy suppliers may not want to pay or could pass on to the customer.

I do plug in and forget mine now, it adds 45% so I plug in when battery at half. Most commute days to be fair. And that’s it.

All this reviewing the slots and usages etc is too much effort and masks the simplicity for the typical driver. That said I’m 4 years into EV now… fuel remains and utter chore compared to charging the car in 20secs.

Presumably you are using an integrated charger rather than via a vehicle based integration?

 

[Penfold101]

I do plug in and forget mine now, it adds 45% so I plug in when battery at half. Most commute days to be fair. And that’s it.

All this reviewing the slots and usages etc is too much effort and masks the simplicity for the typical driver. That said I’m 4 years into EV now… fuel remains and utter chore compared to charging the car in 20secs.

This. I have my podpoint home charger set to only work from 12-5 when it’s the cheap rate and just plug in the car when I get home. Very rarely is neither of the two plugged in overnight but it’s not different to just plugging your phone in when you go to bed…

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Presumably you are using an integrated charger rather than via a vehicle based integration?

I am now yes, Ohme. Was using vehicle api when security allowed access until Feb this year. I’m finding the slots through Ohme api to octopus are much quicker to sync than just octopus to car which is interesting.