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The only quirk with our original install was the need for an earthing spike in the garden.
IIRC the 'need' for that has been debunked now. Ours is old enough to also have this. Don't know what happens when you have a replacement charger. Does it get left as is?
Not read all the thread but am interested in how much range people lose at this of year over say September? I have a Kia Niro EV which was doing around 250 miles per charge and that has recently dropped below 200. My daughter is at a uni 250 miles away and when we dropped her off in September we stopped at around 150 miles, charged to 80% - about 40 minutes - at a motorway services and were able to just do a short charge at our destination before returning with one charge to 80% on the way back.
Did the same journey last week and had to charge for an hour on the way there, charge for an hour on arrival and then for over an hour on the way back. The charging really ate into the time I had for my visit as there were no chargers where I was staying or where we went out whilst there.
The charging infrastructure around Durham where she is studying is really patchy and I had to reluctantly use a Tesla charger as the other three locations I had tried previously were either out of order or only charging at 7kW.
I got the car as I rarely drive long distances and my workplace offers free charging. It is great for pootling about but long journeys are painful. I have various apps and guess I need to plan better but it feels like a tremendous faff compared to driving an ICE car.
There's quite a few fast (50kW+) chargers around Durham listed
. I have various apps and guess I need to plan better but it feels like a tremendous faff compared to driving an ICE car.
I had my first experience of charging away from home with mixed results this past weekend. Got from Chester to Newcastle on one full charge and the hotel we stayed in had 6 chargers so I was able to charge to 80% overnight at 50p/ kwh. Coming home yesterday the predicted range was dropping so stopped at Tebay for a quick splash and dash at 69p/kwh. All chargers were full apart from one which turned out to be faulty which wasn't much fun standing in the pissing rain, in November, at Tebay! If anywhere in the UK needs covers over the chargers those do. Carried onto Moto at Lancaster and had my pants pulled down by a Gridserve charger at 89p/kwh but I needed 2 attempts to get that working. So yes, a bit more of a faff than doing the whole thing on a full tank of diesel, but the benefits outweigh the odd bit of faffage.
Question for those that got a local electrician to install, do you have a ball park install cost figure?
I paid about 20% more than Octopus quoted, but was not really a local electrician, more a specialist company. Octopus were saying something like 3 months lead time, they did it in less than a week.
The company I use were brill, I had much more faith in them just going by the questions they asked before they even turned up. They came back free of charge to alter the load balancing setup after I had the main supply fuse upgraded. Just looked them up and they seem to be no longer trading unfortunately.
Question for those that got a local electrician to install, do you have a ball park install cost figure?
I was just under £2K for a Hypervolt charger (£600) a new upgraded consumer unit and some remedial works to solar wiring that was discovered when replacing the CU. I seem to recall Hypervolt only was just under £1k but that was me wanting the ev cable routed underfloor rather than clipped externally to house
I've just moved from EON to Octopus Intelligent Go. Lost an hr on cheap rate at night but today's intelligent schedule is more than the hr lost. Been an easy transition so far
Random...home charging related one others probably knew already...
Last night it was raining as it went dark and woke to stary skies and -7 deg. Car was like a perfectly glazed cube. The remote climate conditioning did a pretty amazing job of defrosting it though so when I got in it at 0650 it was ready to roll. Note to self - remember to defrost your headlights and rear lights too.
The relevant bit....the car was plugged in last night and when the car went into climate conditioning mode it reconnected to the mains to do the job. Looking at my Octopus app, it was on for just under 30mins at 3kw to get up to temperature. But as it was after the end of cheap tariff that was 1.5kwh of energy at full price. Two ways of look at that - on the upside the car range was not impacted and if that matters to what you were doing that day that's a good thing. On the downside, that defrost just cost me more money than the 25mile drive to work done of cheap overnight IOG juice! And in this use case I really don't care about the maximum range and would rather have used power from the battery.
I suspect it is in the car (Kia) options somewhere rather than the charger or the IOG settings to not use tethered power to do a climate condition. Will have to check it out properly later. But thought it's the time of year others might be caught out too....
Not read all the thread but am interested in how much range people lose at this of year over say September? I have a Kia Niro EV which was doing around 250 miles per charge and that has recently dropped below 200. My daughter is at a uni 250 miles away and when we dropped her off in September we stopped at around 150 miles, charged to 80% - about 40 minutes - at a motorway services and were able to just do a short charge at our destination before returning with one charge to 80% on the way back.
Did the same journey last week and had to charge for an hour on the way there, charge for an hour on arrival and then for over an hour on the way back. The charging really ate into the time I had for my visit as there were no chargers where I was staying or where we went out whilst there.
The charging infrastructure around Durham where she is studying is really patchy and I had to reluctantly use a Tesla charger as the other three locations I had tried previously were either out of order or only charging at 7kW.
I got the car as I rarely drive long distances and my workplace offers free charging. It is great for pootling about but long journeys are painful. I have various apps and guess I need to plan better but it feels like a tremendous faff compared to driving an ICE car.
@cletus - in the better weather I’ll get around 220 miles, and now in the colder climate (Scotland) I’m getting 150 at a push
@Zedsdead thanks. I had heard about drop offs in colder weather but assumed that it would be 10-15%.
More fool me for not doing proper research. Luckily as I mentioned above I don't drive that much.
Does anyone sign up with charger networks for discounts just for doing long trips? - I think I would have saved a bit getting a one month Gridserve sub (£7.99 for a 25% discount) on my recent trip. They seem a bit crap compared to Tesla as they do not do adaptive pricing.
Public chargers just seem ludicrously expensive compared to buying petrol.
Does anyone sign up with charger networks for discounts just for doing long trips? - I think I would have saved a bit getting a one month Gridserve sub (£7.99 for a 25% discount) on my recent trip. They seem a bit crap compared to Tesla as they do not do adaptive pricing.
I keep considering it and then forgetting until I'm rocking up to the ionity chargers at Carlisle. Definitely makes sense depending on car and distance. For my 500 mile round trip to the Lake District, I think the savings were going to be about £10, taking into conisderation the monthly charge for the subscription, as long as I didn't over charge on the way home.
Still not got my Octopus install arranged. Utterly useless process. I need to keep refreshing this link they've sent me in the vain hope that some appointment becomes available at some undetermined point in the future. My car is coming next week.
The farce continues
I've given Octopus a month. I must've clicked on the "Book your installation" link 500+ times and there's not a sniff of an appointment available
A couple of days ago the link stopped taking me to a potential appointment page and just directs me to a generic "would you like an EV charger from us" page on the Octopus site
I phoned them this morning, explained what's happened and told the woman on the phone I wanted to cancel my order
"Thanks for letting us know" was her reply!!!
I said "What do you mean thanks for letting you know, you've got £1200 of my money and haven't delivered what I ordered, how do I get my money back?"
She had no idea. She suggested I email them but wasn't able to tell me what the email address was.
FOR ANYONE ELSE CONSIDERING ORDERING VIA OCTOPUS, DON'T. GET IT SORTED VIA SOMEONE LOCAL
FOR ANYONE ELSE CONSIDERING ORDERING VIA OCTOPUS, DON'T. GET IT SORTED VIA SOMEONE LOCAL
Sounds truly ridiculous. I was luckier. They quoted a multi-month wait but I got an appointment in a few weeks.
But ..
Today's Octopus gripe:
They are tightening up their policing of charging periods on IOG, and will be only allowing 6 hours of charging at low price. Which might not be so bad except that THEY (well, Ohme) control the charge rate (once you tell them how many kWh you want), so you can't guarantee to not exceed the permitted time.
I am a bit confused by the proposed changes, though they state that they will update the app to allow you to stop at 6 hours. I am not sure that my combination of car, IOG and Hypervolt 3 really allow me to add a % . I have to set the 80% limit in the car.
Sometimes the charge rate is 3kw/h, how will that work ?
I am a bit confused by the proposed changes,
They seem a bit confused themselves !! They recommend charging every day, which I don't want to do (doesn't suit my usage, which is a longish trip every few days)
I set octopus app at 100% then set the car app at whatever % charge i want eg. 80-90-100%
and will be only allowing 6 hours of charging at low price
There's 6 hours of EV charging AND a guaranteed 6hrs off-peak between 11.30 and 5.30. So if your car isn't charging at 2am, you still get peak. It does say they reserve the right to charge you full price for charging if they can't fit you in within 6hrs. So I suppose it would need some sort of preference to be specified in the app e.g. I would like to charge to 80% but only if you can do it cheaply, otherwise whatever.
There's 6 hours of EV charging AND a guaranteed 6hrs off-peak between 11.30 and 5.30.
You say that like it's a good thing 🙂 There's 6 hours of guaranteed off-peak - as always. But until now you could get as much time as you needed to charge your EV. Now you only get 6 hours and after that you're paying full whack. Sometimes my car is charging at a very low rate (set by Ohme) - I'd be a bit pissed off if they counted that against my 6 hours. Seems like it's not thought through properly.
But until now you could get as much time as you needed to charge your EV.
If I roll home with about 5% left it's about 9 hours to charge a 77kWh battery back to 80%. But that's pretty rare and I'm usually not doing another big trip the next day so just need to remember to set a partial charge. Though as I control charging via Home Assistant I'll probably set something up to alert me if it's going to need more than 40kwh so I don't forget.
There's 6 hours of EV charging AND a guaranteed 6hrs off-peak between 11.30 and 5.30
But the charging period and the cheap rate period may occur at the same time... so it could be only 6 hours.
But the charging period and the cheap rate period may occur at the same time... so it could be just 6 hours.
Worse than that - they know when you have your car charging (and at what rate) so they can limit it to a MAXIMUM of 6 hours regardless of the off-peak charging for the rest of your house.
There's 6 hours of EV charging AND a guaranteed 6hrs off-peak between 11.30 and 5.30.
The AND has been confusing - the new IOG statement has been very confusing as it unfolded on email, Reddit and finally their blog.
https://octopus.energy/blog/intelligent-octopus-go-charge-limit/
They could have split it out and qualified as it seems, and correct me if I'm wrong, you get;
- HOUSE : Off peak for the house only overnight, as before.
- CAR : 6 hours of scheduled car charging, off peak rate, at any point in a 24 hour window from noon to noon. Any more than 6 hours is at peak rate, no matter when.
Anything over 6 hours is billed at peak.
To me that would have been clearer and stopped a lot of questions (assuming I have finally understood it).
so no point in plugging car in during day to get a cheap rate schedule as I charge house batteries at night.
edit
still not sure
I’m not sure I understand. Can you share some examples of how it works?
Imagine you need a 5-hour charge (that’s what most people need).
Scenario 1: we schedule all of the 5 hours outside of the off-peak period (eg. between 2:00-4:00pm, and between 8:00pm-11:00pm)
- You get off-peak rates for your home and for your car between 2:00-4:00pm and between 8:00pm-11:00pm
- You also get off-peak rates for your home between 11:30pm and 5:30am (you always do)
While we're at it...
They also say "plug in every day" as though it's the answer. It's not, at least for everyone;
- I either don't need to (as I WFH and don't use the car every day) or can't (as I'm away for a couple of days and plan to get home on as close to 15-20% as possible)
- The selling point of IOG was "plug in and we'll have your car ready for you". It now won't be in case 2 above.
Also since the charger can dynamically slow the rate of charge, the 6 hours is not guaranteed to give full charge rate (my 7.4KW charger only hits 6.6KW at best anyway). With 6 hours of low rate I'll only hit maximum 39.6Kw so it's going to take 2 days to charge, or cost about another £3.30 extra (For full charges with peak top ups, average Kw cost per charge goes from 7p to 13p. Average cost per mile goes from 2.5 to 4p, before the incoming 3p)
Instead of using my battery range, I'll be charging every 40Kw (50% capacity, so 30-80%) when at home. Suddenly all the issues with range anxiety are less important, and a 42Kw battery may have made more financial sense!
Their use cases also don't take everyone into account, and it sounds like a reaction to offset some people "gaming" the system.
By gaming, I now find out this is either people setting a low charge rate so they get longer cheap times for the house, or user with non connected cars setting a high target rate (such as 100%) in the app, to get allocated more slots. I hadn't appreciated the second one, that I needed to manage my charge via the Octopus app. I just want to plug my car in without doing any maths.
I may have unknowingly been doing this (same as bruneep) , as it was never pointed out that I had to set desired charge in the Octopus app. All I want to do is plug in, and charge. It turns out I was expected to know my target rate (e.g. 80%), check my current charge state (e.g. 25%), then tell IOG app that I want 55% by a certain time. What a faff! Since neither of us drive to work regularly I just set it as late as possible in the hope of getting more cheap house energy in the morning.
Let me know if I'm doing that wrong too! (IOG / Hopervolt / Polestar)
Scenario 1: we schedule all of the 5 hours outside of the off-peak period (eg. between 2:00-4:00pm, and between 8:00pm-11:00pm)
- You get off-peak rates for your home and for your car between 2:00-4:00pm and between 8:00pm-11:00pm
I don't think this is now the case and it's what they're aiming to stop.
"You'll also receive up to 6 hours of discounted smart charging every 24 hours these may be during the 6 hours of off-peak, outside those times, or a mix of both"
....You may get it (or part of it) but you may not.
You also get off-peak rates for your home between 11:30pm and 5:30am (you always do)
Yes. Why would you not charge the car during this time?
I just set it as late as possible in the hope of getting more cheap house energy in the morning.
i.e. gaming the system!
TBH super cheap rates where always going to be under scrutiny and liable to change so it shouldn't be a surprise. Yesterdays announcement of the grid upgrade will also affect things in the long run.
Yes. Why would you not charge the car during this time?
That's the bit I'm struggling with. You can't with the current smart charging plans in place.
They allocate 6 hours of car charging at any time. The house is then cheap at those fixed times. What is to stop people charging 'manually' during this period?
Maybe a Home Assistant integration could solve it?
- Is smart charging scheduled? NO
- Is the house on Off Peak? YES
- THEN Charge
Do they have a way of knowing that it's the car, rather than a battery, a bank of kettles, a welder, etc? Charger API working bi-directionally?
i.e. gaming the system!
Ha, indeed! 😉
But it's down to them to allocate slots so the more room they get, the better all round? No point driving higher pre-8am demand when it's not required for me. They can now give me a later slot to load spread, or schedule me all overnight to get peak out of me. Their choice!
super cheap rates where always going to be under scrutiny and liable to change
Absolutely. And I'm highly aware of the irony of having a nice EV and grumbling about a couple of pence a mile! I'll still save nearly £1k a year on fuel, for a far nicer driving experience.
My biggest frustration is the poorly structured, confusing communication from Octopus!
I'm completely confused now (I'm not a IOG user)! I though the whole idea was that car charging was supposed to be between 23:30 and 05:50 with the possibility of some extra slots thrown in.
magine you need a 5-hour charge (that’s what most people need).
Scenario 1:we schedule all of the 5 hours outside of the off-peak period (eg. between 2:00-4:00pm, and between 8:00pm-11:00pm)
No. If you schedule outside the off-peak rate you might get cheap power, you might not. It's only if there's a surplus of power. People took the piss like this and that's what they are trying to stop.
What is to stop people charging 'manually' during this period?
Maybe a Home Assistant integration could solve it?
- Is smart charging scheduled? NO
- Is the house on Off Peak? YES
- THEN Charge
Do they have a way of knowing that it's the car, rather than a battery, a bank of kettles, a welder, etc? Charger API working bi-directionally?
Yes, that's why the car or the charger need to be integrated to get this feature. They interrogate the car/charger to know when you were actually charging it. Your car will be charging according to their schedule that they set. If you manually set your car to charge (somehow) then it knows you're not following their schedule and you won't get cheap rate (unless it's overnight).
The IOG thing is a bit annoying. My Ohme charger automatically sets the slots and charging speed so it will be difficult to know whether it will go over six hours or not. Theoretically six hours gives me 42 kWh but in practice Ohme/ Octopus slow the charging rate down and charge over a much longer period.
The IOG thing is a bit annoying. My Ohme charger automatically sets the slots and charging speed so it will be difficult to know whether it will go over six hours or not. Theoretically six hours gives me 42 kWh but in practice Ohme/ Octopus slow the charging rate down and charge over a much longer period.
It doesn't work like that. If you plug in at 2330 and In the Octopus app you tell it you need 42kwh (you'll need to put 42 as percentage of your car's capacity) you'll get 42%....unless there are some WiFi/4g connection issues. It'll just program the full window for your charge.. if you plug in early it might ir bring it forward or push it back depending on when you plug it and tell it you need the car ready. But I can't see a down side to this - only upside as the rest of your house is also cheap too. It's 1933 now and my car is home and charging for the next 3 hours, then programmed to stop for a few hours before starting again. Quids in - my evening of debauchery is now a quarter price.
It doesn't work like that.
It does work like that. Looking at my charging history, the most extreme example is 10 hours to deliver 11 kWh.That would mean four hours at peak rate.
The only way to avoid it is to, as you say, plug it in at 2330 and tell it to stop by 0530. Which does rather defeat the purpose of intelligent charging. I'm not sure doing that complies with their T&Cs.
Yeah the ohme charger definitely varies the charging rate depending on factors that I don't understand. I've seen it charge at a rate as low as 1.3kw before. It's not load balancing/throttling because the rest of the house has high usage, it just seem like octopus tell it to reduce the charge rate at times.
It does work like that. Looking at my charging history, the most extreme example is 10 hours to deliver 11kWh.Thatwould mean four hours at peak rate.
Did you want/need 11kwh of charge or did you want more?
If the former, what's the problem? If the latter - something is broken.
Did you want/need 11kwh of charge or did you want more?
If the former, what's the problem? If the latter - something is broken
The problem is that I will no longer receive all of it at the cheaper rate, because it took longer than six hours.
Either you are are getting it all at cheap rate and you don't don't really understand what's going on....or something is broken.
Case in point - tonight I need 35kwh of charge. I plugged in at about 6pm when I got home and went on the octopus app and told it how much I need and that I need the car ready by 6am. It decided to give me half an hour straight away then programmed me 3 more hours from 8.30pm. Then the rest I'm getting at Idon'tgivea****O'clock......It will ALL...I repeat ALL... be at the cheap rate. It's at the cheap rate because IOG decided that that's when it wanted to give me the charge because it's blowing a hoolie and they are getting it to sell on to me for sod all.
For a day or two the app will make it look like I'll have paid top dollar for the hours before 2330, but give it a day or two and the octopus faires will do their thing and make those charging hours cheap too...along with all the other leccy I'm using in those 3 hours this evening. The washing machine is on to get it hung up before I go to bed and these words are being types at 4 for the price of 1.
Either you are are getting it all at cheap rate and you don't don't really understand what's going on....or something is broken.
I understand perfectly well, thanks, but I'm not sure you do. I am currently getting it all at cheap rate, but will not under the new rules, unless I implement a workaround which I think contravenes their T&Cs. The scenario you describe is exactly what I do: the point is that it takes longer than six hours and six hours will be the new limit for cheap charging.
I understand perfectly well, thanks, but I'm not sure you do.
Ah - so you are saying that the charger is actually ON for more that 6 hours, rather than there is more than 6 hours from the beginning of the charge to the end of the charge.
If the latter (because the charger is charging below 7kw) - I'd not worry about it. The rules have not changed yet. Ohme/Octopus is a big partnership - it's a massive seller for them - their biggest brand by a good margin. If any charger will be integrated to work with the tightening of the rule its Ohme. It's a non problem.
Ah - so you are saying that the charger is actually ON for more that 6 hours, rather than there is more than 6 hours from the beginning of the charge to
the end of the charge.
No, I'm saying that there is more than six hours from the beginning to the end of the charge. Octopus/Ohme can and does throttle the current, presumably so they keep their wholesale costs low. Octopus has already said that six hours is the limit
No, I'm saying that there is more than six hours from the beginning to the end of the charge. Octopus/Ohme can and does throttle the current, presumably so they keep their wholesale costs low. Octopus has already said that six hours is the limit
You are still not being very clear. Do you mean (I think you are) that the accumulated hours of actual charging are more than 6?
I've done a quick look at the Ohme FAQ - https://ohme-ev.com/support/troubleshooting-slow-charging/ I'm guessing you have already read that bit. We have an Ohme epod but it's rarely used and on OG now rather than IOG. We mainly use an Indra on a supply with IOG and thats on/off and either 7.3kw or nowt. If Octopus are using their Ohme integration to throttle the current so that the total charge takes more than 6 hours - well post Jan I'd bet my house they stop using that feature or make an exemption. Again, I think it'll be a non problem.
Casual looking in - this smart charging app based stuff seems way too unnecessary for its own good.
Surely plug it in over-night on cheap tarrif and just grab all the hours that are available to you.
What's the advantage over just a cheap linear 6/7 hours? (Is it daytime cheap charging ?)
You are still not being very clear. Do you mean (I think you are) that the accumulated hours of actual charging are more than 6?
That's what I've said I think three times now, yes.
Surely plug it in over-night on cheap tarrif and just grab all the hours that are available to you.
You're not really supposed to do that on the IOG tariff. The idea is to leave it plugged in and the tech works out when to charge.
What's the advantage over just a cheap linear 6/7 hours
Looking at Octopus specifically - IOG is 17% cheaper than OG and (still) 20% more hours of the cheap stuff daily. If that matters is up to you I guess.
Personally, from an environmental perspective (which was one of my reason to go EV) - I like the fact that with smart charging I'm making my needs as flexible to satisfy as possible. If there is bags of energy available at a non standard time - might as well get it in my car.
That's what I've said I think three times now, yes.
really? ...what you said was "I'm saying that there is more than six hours from the beginning to the end of the charge" - which could easily be comprehended as time on the clock or hours accumulated. Try to be slightly more precise with your language if you are going to get prickly.