Octopus intelligence go tariff issues

jam6008

MWT said:

jam6008 said:

I think mercedes has bigger car options. My car is 80kwh.
Thanks for the help.

Going to initial post, my car charging schedule never used to disappear even if car is fully charged. It only started doing this from yesterday.

When car battery will be full it will just say unable to control car etc. But schedule remained.

Im wondering if octopus has made changes to my account on purpose 

This is a change that was made a while ago, not sure why it didn't affect you before, but it was never intended for you to be able to get a schedule that persists beyond your car being full. This was never an intended part of the tariff.

If it worked for you before then be happy you were able to benefit from it, but it is completely intended that you should not be able to do it in the future...

If you need to connect your EVSE rather than your EV it is still possible if you call CS, but it will still not let you keep a schedule if your car is full and not able to accept a charge.

Just set the percentage charge you actually need, do not just request 100% every time to get early/extra  slots and all will be good.

Octopus are taking steps to deal with the types of exploits that customers using EVSE integrations are getting away with and that is why you can no longer integrate using EVSE without CS contact. 

Ive only been with them for 3 months so thought that's just how it was for everyone. It did feel strange though to get cheap hours after it was already charged.

Maybe it was a charger thing not sure.

Ive managed to set it back up again using my charger by just picking different car as suggested earlier. Hope it all works fine now.

MWT

jam6008 said:

Ive managed to set it back up again using my charger by just picking different car as suggested earlier. Hope it all works fine now.

Hopefully the car you picked has a similar battery capacity, or you'll need to make adjustments when requesting the % to charge. 

jam6008

MWT said:

jam6008 said:

Ive managed to set it back up again using my charger by just picking different car as suggested earlier. Hope it all works fine now.

Hopefully the car you picked has a similar battery capacity, or you'll need to make adjustments when requesting the % to charge. 

Ive picked biggest battery merc and set it to charge 80%. I think most people i know always leave their app set to 100%

MWT

jam6008 said:

MWT said:

jam6008 said:

Ive managed to set it back up again using my charger by just picking different car as suggested earlier. Hope it all works fine now.

Hopefully the car you picked has a similar battery capacity, or you'll need to make adjustments when requesting the % to charge. 

Ive picked biggest battery merc and set it to charge 80%. I think most people i know always leave their app set to 100%

... and that is why they are trying to move away from EVSE integrations...

How hard is it to be honest and just request what you need?

If this continues I'd expect them to take further steps to deal with the problem.

jam6008

I dont think its about being honest its about time and effort.

I don't know about you but im guessing most people set that screen and leave it. You set a time you normally leave for work and charge level you want car to be at.

Are you expecting people to everyday check how much charge their car needs and change that figure? No one will do that. Most people wont have time or wont remember.

Its a setting that shouldn't need to be touched. You set it on day of charger installation and that's it.

I understand where you're coming from and how this can be abused. But if off peak rate disappears once your car is fully charged then it shouldn't really matter if you set to 100% or 20%. It should just stop.

MWT

jam6008 said:

I don't know about you but im guessing most people set that screen and leave it. You set a time you normally leave for work and charge level you want car to be at.

That is the first problem, with EVSE integrations you do not set the charge level you want, you set the charge level you need to add...

jam6008 said:

Are you expecting people to everyday check how much charge their car needs and change that figure? No one will do that. Most people wont have time or wont remember.

Its a setting that shouldn't need to be touched. You set it on day of charger installation and that's it.

Yes, that is exactly what you should be doing and it takes less than 30 seconds to do just that.

It absolutely needs to be touched as it is not the SoC you want that you are setting it is the amount you need to add and that will vary from day to day and from charge to charge for most people.

jam6008 said:

I understand where you're coming from and how this can be abused. But if off peak rate disappears once your car is fully charged then it shouldn't really matter if you set to 100% or 20%. It should just stop.

It matters because what is happening when you request to add 80% but only have room for 20% is that Octopus allocate sub-optimal charging slots in more expensive HH periods because they are expecting to need to deliver 80%, and then when they need to deliver the rest of the 80% at the times they have committed to consume the energy they cannot as the car is already full...

It is a significant problem for Octopus as they need a dependable energy sink to make the tariff pricing work and they can do that with the EV integrations but too many people on the EVSE integrations are not cooperating or are actively abusing the system.

born_again

jam6008 said:

MWT said:

jam6008 said:

Ive managed to set it back up again using my charger by just picking different car as suggested earlier. Hope it all works fine now.

Hopefully the car you picked has a similar battery capacity, or you'll need to make adjustments when requesting the % to charge. 

Ive picked biggest battery merc and set it to charge 80%. I think most people i know always leave their app set to 100%

WHY?

You only get cheap rate while car is charging. So pointless selecting a bigger battery, as once battery is full it will stop charging.

I often only select 10 or 20% charge. Just enough to cover when we are using a lot of house electric. Then I can do it over a couple of days, if required.
Other times when I need a 100% charge in battery. I just select the required % to get to 100%.

QrizB

born_again said:
I often only select 10 or 20% charge. 

...
Other times when I need a 100% charge in battery. I just select the required % to get to 100%.

We only have EVSE integration since VW wanted us to stump up for a subscription to their cloud services in order to connect the e-UP.

Much like born_again enhave a daily routine set that asks for a 20% top-up by 0730. This is usually enough and we generally only change it if we're planning a longer trip.

kingstreet

We have two EVs on IOG with an Ohme Home Pro. When a charge is required I ask the driver for the charge level when they come in and set the amount to add and it takes a minute or two. Neither has an API link, so since onboarding in Feb 24 I've never opened the Octopus app. The Ohme app handles everything and I've never had a problem,

MattMattMattUK

born_again said:

jam6008 said:

MWT said:

jam6008 said:

Ive managed to set it back up again using my charger by just picking different car as suggested earlier. Hope it all works fine now.

Hopefully the car you picked has a similar battery capacity, or you'll need to make adjustments when requesting the % to charge. 

Ive picked biggest battery merc and set it to charge 80%. I think most people i know always leave their app set to 100%

WHY?

You only get cheap rate while car is charging. So pointless selecting a bigger battery, as once battery is full it will stop charging.

Am I missing part of the conversation? On IOG one gets the cheap rate in the 23:30-05:30 window regardless of whether the car is charging or not, plus whole house usage on the cheap rate whenever Octopus choose to charge the car outside of those hours.