EV general discussion

The house we are buying currently has a hypervolt EV car charger installed on the side of the house. It is a 1970's property. Maybe we now need an electric car to go with it. :D
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
The way I see it is that intelligent is basically the 'end game' of EV charging and if you want the cheapest rates, you'll have to use it.
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Does seem pretty good... I was actually surprised when I did the maths and found that (assuming you have an electric car to charge!) even the basic Octopus Go with it's seemingly expensive 'main' rate for 20 hours does save money overall, or would for me at least, about ~£20-25 a month I think, and that's not a huge amount of charging really at ~160 miles a week.

Didn't actually think I'd be getting an electric car anytime soon, like decades, but giving it some serious thought now
 
Ironically, as much as I think it’s the future, I don’t actually use it currently.

I’m still locked in at 20p/kWh for another 9/10 months, not a chance I’m giving that up willingly.
 
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I'm on intelligent and disabled the intelligence, at some point I expect to be stopped. But I loose out to the odd hour outside of the standard cheap 6 hours, but gain reaching peak charge closer to me usage, so the battery is warmer and spends less time at higher charge.
 
Some public charging updates out today:

Osprey rapids down from £1kwh to 79p/kWh from 1st Nov. Some positive news.

Bonnet are pulling a bait and switch and completely changing their business model. Who knew allowing people to charge for 50p on a £1/kWh charger wasn’t sustainable.

Instead of a flat rate to charge on any charger in their network, they are now giving up to a 15% discount on that networks price. By that logic, using PAYG, Osprey above should be 67p/kWh from 1st Nov (assuming you get the full 15% with them).

They are moving away from pre buying KWHs and moving to boosting the up to 15% discount for a monthly fee. £2/month gets you another 10% off, £8 gets you another 15% off.

I’ve got no idea how much you’ll get off each network/charger, presumably there is at least one with 15% off. I’m sure someone will do the hard work for us :D

Edit: the bonnet change is also from 1st nov.

The Osprey email and Bonnet email landed with seconds of each other, clearly timed together. Is Bonnet/Ossprey invested in each other?
 
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Good info, no suprised on Bonnet i guess. Jaguar Land Rover Charging (has launched for across UK & Europe now with some operators including Osprey so that now be an option for frequent public charging types.

Subscription £4.60 a month and DC including Osprey down to 54p, if you go Platinum subscription of £8.50 47p for DC and 30p AC so more options are emerging as the market starts to stablise. The DC charging doesn't cover Ionity though where Octopue Electroverse & Bonnet remain cheaper.
 
Are there any tie ins with being an Octopus Intelligent customer for charging away from home? I've not properly looked in to charging away from home as we will not use it much but after seeing some of the crazy prices on ZapMap etc it doesn't seem financially sensible to cahrge at most of these places!
 
I should have also said that if you can charge at home for next to nothing then you only use them to put in the absolute minimum you need to get you home.

The only time I don’t do that is when they are ‘free’.
 
Anyone else on Intelligent Octopus had the car charging turn on during peak hours?

I know the “smart charging” option in the app allows Octopus to pick and choose when to charge the car (you will always be charged the reduced rate even during the day if they choose to charge then), but it seems odd to charge it at 6:30pm as surely that is during peak grid usage?
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Don’t ask questions and take the extra half hour of cheap electric during peak times. Whack on your oven and get dinner going ;)
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Well they’re either charging me 7.5p/kWh at 6:30pm or I’m paying 41p to unnecessarily charge the car :D

Would be nice if the Octopus app separated out your EV charging and household meters.
 
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No need, if intelligent decides to charge your car at 18:30 for half an hour, it’s 7.5p for everything for the whole half hour. Winner winner chicken dinner.

They can’t separate your car charging from your house charging, they only have one smart meter and it covers your whole house.
 
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I've got a decision to make. My born has now been pushed back to April /May (no great surprise if a little disappointing given it was ordered end March) and I can now see the MG4 on our platform at a monthly cost which is £70 less.

I'm tempted to switch, however it's not a massive cost difference and while the cars are pretty close in terms of overall package I do think the Born is ultimately a nicer car. Plus i have some concerns about moving to the back of another queue. On the flip side that saving buys a little bit of charging, I'm not overly invested in the Cupra and the shift in date has annoyed me a bit!
 
Even speaking as Cupra Born owner myself, in your shoes I'd switch. £70 a month is a lot over 3-4 years plus I suspect they are making cars a lot more quickly in China than they are in the VW factory
 
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