Associate
Ok makes sense, I'll give it a try...I read somewhere I need to set the zappi to eco+ mode instead of 'fast' when it's the integration with IGo
When are you going fully electric?
- Thread starter Ricochet J
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I think that’s what my neighbours is set to - I don’t have a compatible charger so link directly to my Model Y.
Man of Honour
I need advice on an EV Charger from Octopus please.
On this page the top two are my choices, the Zappi and the Ohme Home Pro - https://octopus.energy/Our-Chargers...GVHcQTxqYpLlWVKPrA4-cpOJ5NTwJOdhoCv44QAvD_BwE
So I have already learned that if I eventually have solar panels to do it this way:
1) Wake up and hopefully the solar panels are running the house electricity, any leftover Kw tell the software to fill the solar battery up first.
2) When the sun goes down the house will be powered by the solar battery until it runs out and then you buy from the grid.
3) Setup both your car and solar battery with Intelligent Go to charge at cheap rate.
Pretty sure I've got this advice right.
I'd like to buy the Ohme Home Pro for one simple feature, a longer cable but I'm not sure if I can do the advice above with that Charger because of this statement:
Solar compatibility: If you’re looking to use solar power to charge your car, you’re in luck. But the Home Pro isn’t suitable if you have battery storage too, (especially on IO Go).
That looks like a problem but is it really saying if you have a battery the battery will get it first?
Thanks for any advice.
On this page the top two are my choices, the Zappi and the Ohme Home Pro - https://octopus.energy/Our-Chargers...GVHcQTxqYpLlWVKPrA4-cpOJ5NTwJOdhoCv44QAvD_BwE
So I have already learned that if I eventually have solar panels to do it this way:
1) Wake up and hopefully the solar panels are running the house electricity, any leftover Kw tell the software to fill the solar battery up first.
2) When the sun goes down the house will be powered by the solar battery until it runs out and then you buy from the grid.
3) Setup both your car and solar battery with Intelligent Go to charge at cheap rate.
Pretty sure I've got this advice right.
I'd like to buy the Ohme Home Pro for one simple feature, a longer cable but I'm not sure if I can do the advice above with that Charger because of this statement:
Solar compatibility: If you’re looking to use solar power to charge your car, you’re in luck. But the Home Pro isn’t suitable if you have battery storage too, (especially on IO Go).
That looks like a problem but is it really saying if you have a battery the battery will get it first?
Thanks for any advice.
Associate
So as it stands with export at 15p and cheep battery / ev charging at 7p. I is better just to fill the battery to 100% at night and not worry about Solar diverting into the car, just use the octopus intelligent smart charging. Any excess solar gets exported at 15p so profit.
So you don’t need a smart integration of battery / solar / charger. You just don’t want to drain the battery with the car if it charges outside the normal off peek period.
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Man of Honour
So are you saying the Ohme will work?
Associate
It depends how they install it. My charger has no potential for solar or battery integration. However as the install split the incoming tales I could move the battery/solar CT so it can’t see EV Charger demand.
The Zappi whould be the most flexible solution for the future.
Man of Honour
I wish I went for the Zappi because this Ohme Home Pro is a pain. The worst part is that it has a problem with the Nissan app, something that wasn't evident when I was researching chargers and in fact stated the car and the charger were fully compatible. Everytime I plug the charger into my Leaf I have to delete the car and re-register it in the Ohme app because otherwise it won't read the battery state of charge thinks it's at zero then charges it to 100% and whinges that the battery is charging much slower than expected. Pain in the butt!!
Man of Honour
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2010
- Posts
- 2,559
1. Wake up with a full car battery, a full house battery and your hot water cylinder red hot from electric heating all night. Dishwasher and washing machien also ran overnight. All of this @ 7p.
2. Solar export everything @ 15p.
3. Dump anything left in the battery to the grid before 23:30
4. Profit.
In June this year when it was very sunny I averaged over £5/day profit.
I've a Zappi and I manage things with Home Assistant. I'd get a Zappi for the Solar charging as one day the export £ might reduce so it gives you future flexability.
Man of Honour
Well we have had our holiday with my first experience of renting and driving an electric car. We usually do not have any hire car at all but this time the cost of a transfer from the airport to where we were staying was more than renting. A car meant we the had the convenience and flexibility of not having to rely on public transport as well which is handy with trying to have days out with a 19 month old. I picked the electric car just to sample what the driving and charging experience would be.
I booked my car through an airline (not the one we flew with) who arranged it through a broker who booked it with Thrifty but Thrifty was really Hertz which is not confusing at all. Pick up was straightforward in Nice airport with a dedicated car rental and return building for all the hire companies. We got sent into the premium area both at the desk and upstairs picking up the car and they easily sorted out an appropriate car seat for us to put in.
We booked a Peugeot 2008 or equivalent and I was convinced we are going to have a Hyundai Kona after seeming them specifically advertised elsewhere. I was quite pleased to end up with this instead:
A Volvo C40 recharge. First impressions were that it looked like a very smart solid car although who specifies diamond cut wheels on a hire car is a complete mug as they were already very scraped already. I briefly had concerns about getting everything in with the roof sloping down but there was no issue, the car was wide enough for the pushchair to go right across. Inside everyone seemed very solid and certainly a step up in terms of weight and feel than my similar sized petrol MG ZS crossover. The glass roof was a nice feature but sadly it does not open and I stil miss having a motorised boot on my own car now. Putting in a new and unknown car seat to a new car was a challenge but not a problem, just a shame that it was not in and ready for us.
One main fear was picking up a car with 100% charge and being told to bring it back with 100% again. When handed over it had 100% or 552km of range and fortunately told that bringing it back at anything over 80% would be fine. The first drive in a new car is always interesting particularly out of quite a narrow car park and someone else’s car to look after. The Volvo was quite like an automatic in that you put it in drive and it moves off itself needing to be held on the brake when stopping. I could instantly tell why electric cars are popular with the power being instant exactly as you want it to be. Out of the airport onto France’s concrete jungle of roads into the motorway we had our first encounter with the French driving like they are in the Taxi movies with a motorcycle passing us on the hard shoulder of a 270 degree curved autoroute slip road. The Volvo was fine on the auto route although my instinct was to want to change up a gear although there were none. The lane departure warning and assistance worked well as my instinct was to drive to far over to the right and it was good to get this out of my system before being on smaller roads. The trip to our accommodation in Mandelieu-la-Naupole via a supermarket took us down to 93% charge for about 33km
Over the course of the holiday we made lots of reasonably short trips in the local areas mostly on smaller roads and into some much smaller car parks. The built in google maps was good for navigation and battery planning except for the day it didn’t want to connect to the internet. The cars steering was initially very light and it felt very much like I was just roughly pointing the car where I generally wanted it to go. I found a setting after a few days for heavier steering which helped my feeling a lot. We managed well, I only caught the tyres once on a kerb (in a school rush hour when you were really having to watch for the kids on the little moto and mopeds) I also found a setting for one foot driving which was great because it stopped the car from creeping when you had your foot off the accelerator and fun to learn to drive without using a break although it felt more like driving a model train than a petrol car. Parking as with most modern cars was easy with the big mirrors and the usual reversing camera although I did miss the 360 degree camera on my MG. Eventually I spotted that the dashboard had a power and charge readout so you knew when the car was self charging.
Due to the limited kilometres we were doing, the cars battery and the car being able to use the 22kw chargers at full speed I only needed to charge once from 73% after about 245km
The local chargers from were from WiiiZ and I did not bother with signing up. My first attempt was a disaster firstly not realising they had little doors to open up rather than that being a plug socket the door getting stuck and slamming shut by accident and then confusing the machine and the operator about which side to the point we had to give up. The second attempt went smoothly.
Instructions for WiiiZ.fr charger
1. Plug your T2 cable into the car
2. Use website to find you location and charger and charger side note the from the front the right hand side was side 1 rather than the left as I expected.
3. Enter you are details and initialise the charge.
4. The side selected and button should flash, push the button to release the door. Don’t let the door slam shut on you!
5. Plug your cable in and close the door.
6. The unit light should go blue to confirm it is charging, on the Volvo it confirmed on the dashboard as well. If you keep the website open it tells you the time elapsed, amount transferred in KW and your charges so you can estimate when to return to the car.
To finish charging you just have to push the button on the door to stop and release the door so you can unplug.
The last trip back to the airport around 30km estimated I would be left with 89% charge but I arrived with 96% showing that driving steadily and being careful of speed and how you slow down can make a big difference. Handover at nice was very smooth just pulling into a return lane where they get straight to looking around the car before saying it was all fine.
All in all it was a great car to rent and when you know how if you have a nearby public charger it was very convenient. Everything has changed from the days where your UK debit cards did not work in Europe so everything was in cash! The only flaw is that for the French Riviera the Volvo was overkill and I would have preferred one of these!
I booked my car through an airline (not the one we flew with) who arranged it through a broker who booked it with Thrifty but Thrifty was really Hertz which is not confusing at all. Pick up was straightforward in Nice airport with a dedicated car rental and return building for all the hire companies. We got sent into the premium area both at the desk and upstairs picking up the car and they easily sorted out an appropriate car seat for us to put in.
We booked a Peugeot 2008 or equivalent and I was convinced we are going to have a Hyundai Kona after seeming them specifically advertised elsewhere. I was quite pleased to end up with this instead:
A Volvo C40 recharge. First impressions were that it looked like a very smart solid car although who specifies diamond cut wheels on a hire car is a complete mug as they were already very scraped already. I briefly had concerns about getting everything in with the roof sloping down but there was no issue, the car was wide enough for the pushchair to go right across. Inside everyone seemed very solid and certainly a step up in terms of weight and feel than my similar sized petrol MG ZS crossover. The glass roof was a nice feature but sadly it does not open and I stil miss having a motorised boot on my own car now. Putting in a new and unknown car seat to a new car was a challenge but not a problem, just a shame that it was not in and ready for us.
One main fear was picking up a car with 100% charge and being told to bring it back with 100% again. When handed over it had 100% or 552km of range and fortunately told that bringing it back at anything over 80% would be fine. The first drive in a new car is always interesting particularly out of quite a narrow car park and someone else’s car to look after. The Volvo was quite like an automatic in that you put it in drive and it moves off itself needing to be held on the brake when stopping. I could instantly tell why electric cars are popular with the power being instant exactly as you want it to be. Out of the airport onto France’s concrete jungle of roads into the motorway we had our first encounter with the French driving like they are in the Taxi movies with a motorcycle passing us on the hard shoulder of a 270 degree curved autoroute slip road. The Volvo was fine on the auto route although my instinct was to want to change up a gear although there were none. The lane departure warning and assistance worked well as my instinct was to drive to far over to the right and it was good to get this out of my system before being on smaller roads. The trip to our accommodation in Mandelieu-la-Naupole via a supermarket took us down to 93% charge for about 33km
Over the course of the holiday we made lots of reasonably short trips in the local areas mostly on smaller roads and into some much smaller car parks. The built in google maps was good for navigation and battery planning except for the day it didn’t want to connect to the internet. The cars steering was initially very light and it felt very much like I was just roughly pointing the car where I generally wanted it to go. I found a setting after a few days for heavier steering which helped my feeling a lot. We managed well, I only caught the tyres once on a kerb (in a school rush hour when you were really having to watch for the kids on the little moto and mopeds) I also found a setting for one foot driving which was great because it stopped the car from creeping when you had your foot off the accelerator and fun to learn to drive without using a break although it felt more like driving a model train than a petrol car. Parking as with most modern cars was easy with the big mirrors and the usual reversing camera although I did miss the 360 degree camera on my MG. Eventually I spotted that the dashboard had a power and charge readout so you knew when the car was self charging.
Due to the limited kilometres we were doing, the cars battery and the car being able to use the 22kw chargers at full speed I only needed to charge once from 73% after about 245km
The local chargers from were from WiiiZ and I did not bother with signing up. My first attempt was a disaster firstly not realising they had little doors to open up rather than that being a plug socket the door getting stuck and slamming shut by accident and then confusing the machine and the operator about which side to the point we had to give up. The second attempt went smoothly.
Instructions for WiiiZ.fr charger
1. Plug your T2 cable into the car
2. Use website to find you location and charger and charger side note the from the front the right hand side was side 1 rather than the left as I expected.
3. Enter you are details and initialise the charge.
4. The side selected and button should flash, push the button to release the door. Don’t let the door slam shut on you!
5. Plug your cable in and close the door.
6. The unit light should go blue to confirm it is charging, on the Volvo it confirmed on the dashboard as well. If you keep the website open it tells you the time elapsed, amount transferred in KW and your charges so you can estimate when to return to the car.
To finish charging you just have to push the button on the door to stop and release the door so you can unplug.
The last trip back to the airport around 30km estimated I would be left with 89% charge but I arrived with 96% showing that driving steadily and being careful of speed and how you slow down can make a big difference. Handover at nice was very smooth just pulling into a return lane where they get straight to looking around the car before saying it was all fine.
All in all it was a great car to rent and when you know how if you have a nearby public charger it was very convenient. Everything has changed from the days where your UK debit cards did not work in Europe so everything was in cash! The only flaw is that for the French Riviera the Volvo was overkill and I would have preferred one of these!
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Associate
Just remember it’s more of a battery system problem rather than a charger one. i.e the battery being emptied into the car when Octopus give you slots outside of the normal cheep window.
I don’t know what battery system or hybrid inverter you are looking at. But you either need to isolate house demand from car demand or have a system that fully integrates.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 7,615
correct, the zappi is in eco+ mode. when you plug in it will just sit and do nothing..... until 1 of 2 things happen
1) if you have solar and your generation exceeds what your house is using then the zappi will dump the excess into your car
2) octpus will send a command to the zappi to charge your car.
personally as i sell my electricity i do not 1) to ever happen so i tell my zappi not to charge my car unless my electricity export is over 4kwh.... this will never ever happen so in effect my car will not charge from solar.
when you have IO set up correctly to use your zappi, you wont tell the octopus app how many kwh you want........ you will tell it what percentage of your car battery you want to go into the car.... and what time you need the car to be charged for (it has to be a window between.... iirc 4am and 11am). it will then do its best to charge your car and it be done by the time you stated.
if you haver more than 1 EV (like we do) then you add the car with the biggest battery to your octopus account and then work out the percentage for your smaller battery car.
for instance our ipace has almost exactly 3x the battery of our i3.... so if i want a 90% charge of our i3, i tell the octopus app i want a 30% charge
IF you need your car charging right away, you still use the octopus app , you plug the car in and select bump charge... this will then charge your car right away.... but you will pay what ever the going rate is for your electricity.
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Associate
Anyone with a Zappi and Octopus Go had issues with the car not charging? We have a Model Y and a couple of times in the last few weeks have woke up to find it hasn't bothered charging despite being plugged in. It works 95% of the time and we haven't changed any settings, it was definitely plugged in etc. We weren't planning to go anywhere so not a massive issue but if it happened the night before a long journey I'd be a bit annoyed! Its all set up to be controlled via Octopus - not the car itself. Any ideas what could cause this?
Are you on Go or intelligent go?
If intelligent go, is the tariff integrated with the car or the charger?
Associate
Its intelligent go and integrated with the charger.
Soldato
Had a look at a Born and damn you really don’t get much for your money do you.
I’ve worked out it’ll save me ~£200 a month compared to my 320d but it just doesn’t seem worth the cost.
I’d be losing out on:
Decent headlights
Decent sound system
Comfy seats (didn’t like the cupra)
Proper buttons for everything
Rattle free
Ease of access to long journeys (I’ve lived with an electric car and it was just an extra thing to think about on a longer journey)
It felt exceptionally cheap. As it happens the deal I saw has expired as they have sold out.
Couldn’t see anything else with a 300 mile+ range which was cheap enough.
I’ve worked out it’ll save me ~£200 a month compared to my 320d but it just doesn’t seem worth the cost.
I’d be losing out on:
Decent headlights
Decent sound system
Comfy seats (didn’t like the cupra)
Proper buttons for everything
Rattle free
Ease of access to long journeys (I’ve lived with an electric car and it was just an extra thing to think about on a longer journey)
It felt exceptionally cheap. As it happens the deal I saw has expired as they have sold out.
Couldn’t see anything else with a 300 mile+ range which was cheap enough.
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Man of Honour
Installation date for Zappi Charger Is December 
Rang up and got it for Oct 19th.
Can't have Octopus IGo until Nov 1st.
Rang up and got it for Oct 19th.
Can't have Octopus IGo until Nov 1st.
This is a problem with VAG style cars at the low end. Compared to a MG4, or a Megane E-Tech you really don’t get a lot for your money.
The MG.4 gives you the same level of very basic kit in SE trim for a lot less money. The Trophy trim MG4 and the Megane E-Tech gives you a lot more for the same money.
Buying an ID.3 or a Born is more about style than value for money because at almost every level the Megane is a better car for the same price and the MG4 is as good or better for less.
For me at least a born is a very hard sell as it is woefully under equipped compared to its rivals.
