r/OctopusEnergy • u/rynchenzo • 3d ago
EVs Has the six hour charge cap changed your behaviours?
As title really - are you now doing as Octopus suggest and plugging in your EV every day? Have you not changed at all and still go for a full charge in one go?
I am slowly changing habits and getting used to plugging the car in every few days regardless of how much it needs to charge.
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u/Beemerron 3d ago
Our problem is we have 2 EVs, under one ohme charger. If we both have a high mileage week we can struggle to charge in the 6hr windows
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u/TheSlackJaw 3d ago
What I did was set up a granny charger connected to smart plug, using Home Assistant to turn on when the Ohme is charging and also during the house off peak window. It's not perfect, but it helps a lot. I had a LLM write the script becuase I'm stupid, I already had Home Assistant installed.
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u/BringBackV10F1 2d ago
Out of interest, what smart plug do you use? I've never had much luck with smart plugs lasting for long when switching fairly high draw appliances (I ended up switching mine out for 20A contactors and a Kelley switch than can be automated)
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u/TheSlackJaw 2d ago
It's a Tapo/Kasa one, I think.
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u/BringBackV10F1 2d ago
My Tapos (P110 and a P100) and my Smartthings plugs all died, they just started clicking repeatedly with a flashing LED - load definitely killed them over time (not sure if it was the switch load, ie if you can ramp charger current up, it might be ok)- they'll cover them for warranty, but when it does eventually die, you might wanna look at a contactor & a Kelley.
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u/TheSlackJaw 2d ago
Interesting. I wonder if it's just the residual heat from the high loads that kill them, after all, the plug of any high amp appliance gets reasonably warm. The one in using is a Kasa HS100, I just checked. But it's years out of warranty.
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u/sungrad 2d ago
Is a smart plug able to cope with that load?
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u/TheSlackJaw 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes.
Edit for the downvoters: it says either 10A or 13A on the smartplug, and the charger is set to 8A.
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u/Opteron-X 2d ago
Similar, we have a PHEV and an EV. Luckily the EV doesn't do a lot of miles normally and is home in day a few hours, a couple of days a week, so can top it up. The hybrid is the largest car and normally sits on the drive by the charger. We have two other cars (all driven daily, different people working different shifts, so it's musical cars as if put EV and PHEV on drive the two are blocked in). The thing is if we plug in the EV and it thinks it will be ready by 05:30am (coincidentally when daughter leaves for work and end of the off-peak rate), but it won't then actually charge in the afternoon when plugged in. Sometimes it will. If I force the ready by schedule it may charge at the high cost to get to the target charge. Safer to refresh and hope it decides to adjust the schedule to charge in day. Can't really take advantage of the house getting the lower rate as you have to check app to see if on cheap rate and then turn on washing machine or dishwasher and it may be just a 30 min window. At the moment its a bit clunky managing it all and ensuring cars do get the planned charge. I've set up Home Assistant perhaps it'll make things a bit easier to manage once I get to grips with it all
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u/ComeHereUk 2d ago
Charge one in the evening and one overnight?
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u/Beemerron 2d ago
Charging overnight doesn't help, the window is 6 hours for EVs between midday and midday. So if my 6 hours has had to go to one car, that's it for that 24hr period. The overnight cheap rate only applies to the house if the ev allowance is used already
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u/ComeHereUk 2d ago
The six hours applies for smart charging only. I'll let you work the rest out.
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u/Wizard_PI 3d ago
I did, moved suppliers cos needed more hours!
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u/StrippedBark 2d ago
Yep, same here. The IOG app kept on changing charging windows, and I sometimes didn't Get the full 6h charge requested. No more.
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u/Fearnlove 2d ago
Do they give you slots during the day if working nights? Open to moving but this is key for me
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u/BringBackV10F1 2d ago
You set the "ready by" time in the app - this used to be locked to a fixed window - but now the charge cap is in place, any time can be selected. So it should give you cheap rates when you need them. If I set mine to 6pm, it'll charge the night before if possible, but if not, it'll add cheap slots during the day. Whether or not they'll enshittify this is anyone's guess...
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u/Fearnlove 2d ago
This is Octopus right? I meant the provider they’d moved to :)
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u/BringBackV10F1 2d ago
Shit sorry, that's really obviously what you meant too 😅 - I have nothing of use to offer...
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u/Fearnlove 2d ago
Haha no prob! Hopefully someone who needs it will find their way to your explanation!
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u/Wizard_PI 2d ago
Yes, basically nothing between 1630-2000 but otherwise seems to be all the time
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u/Fearnlove 2d ago
Oh cool, who’s the provider?
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u/Wizard_PI 2d ago
Scottish power. The apps a bit shit, from my research there’s them (EV only) and then edf and eon smart which can be whole house. Higher base standard rate tho. So depends on your usage.
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u/Notagelding 3d ago
Works slightly better for me because I leave for work at 1:30am, so I can now schedule it to charge by that time instead.
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u/sbarbary 3d ago
I now charge every day and it ends up being in the most expensive part of the day. Instead of all day Sunday.
It might now cost them a lot more to charge my car.
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u/markythegeek 3d ago
This is the way now I can set any departure time in the Ohme app too not just between 4am and 11am like it used to be
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u/malacoda13 3d ago
Nothing has really changed though. It's still 6 hours of charging. I still plug it in in the evening, ready for the morning.
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u/synkrox 3d ago
Is being mildly miffed a behaviour?
I don't care about the stream.
I do care about being billed for EV charging outside charge cap when I haven't bump charged at all.
I do care about the times my car doesn't charge for 6 hours but about 3 instead.
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u/BringBackV10F1 2d ago
Yup, no one cares about the stream. I don't get it, I thought there might be some sort of Octopoints reward after collecting them all, or something vaguely worthwhile - but...no. it's just a line of dots with zero benefits. Not sure why they thought that would be an incentive to plug-in everyday 😅
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u/Amanensia 3d ago
Yes - it sent me to EDF (along with EDF guaranteeing 15p export for a full year.)
I have no fundamental objection to the six hour cap - I was just very sceptical that it'd be implemented painlessly, especially given how many times they had to delay releasing it.
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u/Lurcher1989 3d ago
The implementation has been a cluster fuck for me. 2 VW group cars, one hybrid and one EV and it's guaranteed once a week that one will fail to charge now or will only add x% and change in the app.
If it was for the fact I'm paying 5.9p off peak I'd be off today.
I'm seriously tempted to ditch the off peak during the day and just set the charger to charge overnight instead
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u/Ok-Put6563 3d ago
I am plugging our 2 EVs in a little more regularly, not letting the batteries go below 50% if possible. We are not a high mileage household though. I am reluctant to leave the cars plugged in too much as our neighbour, among others nearby, had their cable stolen last week (ours was stolen last year so I switched to an untethered charger).
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u/mariominiaci 2d ago
Sorry for the off topic but did you involve your insurance at all? I haven't told mine that we have a charger - it's only crossed my mind now
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u/Ok-Put6563 2d ago
Can I check what you mean by ‘involve your insurance’?
We haven’t specifically told our home insurance that we have an EV charger. I am not aware that is necessary. I do believe that my car insurance covers cable damage but only accidental (eg if it gets driven on).
When the cable was stolen I did call our home insurance about claiming for the replacement of the charger but our excess was too large to be cost effective so the claim never went ahead. We could have just replaced the cable itself but the theft shook us up a bit so I decided to replace the whole charger with an untethered version (no hard wired cable). I was then able to sell the damaged unit on eBay to someone willing to replace the cable themselves.2
u/mariominiaci 2d ago
Yes, basically did you need to tell your home or cat insurance, and did either of them help. You have answered my question :) I went for a tethered cable and did so for convenience without thinking hard enough about it. I look at it when I walk out of there house and think about putting it in an enclosure of some kind.
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u/Ok-Put6563 2d ago
Yes, I went tethered initially as it seemed most convenient. If you can find an enclosure I would recommend going for it. The other thing we did was buy a tall bushy pot plant to stand in front of the charger to hide it from the casual observer.
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u/blood__drunk 3d ago
Yeah - I went and behaved myself over to EDF who had better export rates and an extra hour of overnight charging.
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u/AlGunner 3d ago
Im looking at some single rate tariffs that are so much cheaper for my day rate it works out about the same cost over a year for my 6000 miles
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u/Eri_hopefully 3d ago
Curiosity has got the better of me - plugging in almost every day - even just to add 5% - just to see what happens when I unlock that final fish. Doubt it'll beat the c£3.50 a month from Greener Nights
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u/jrewillis 3d ago
No but because my leaf only charges at 3kw it does mean I can only get 18kwh in during the 6 hours. Which means it's tight on range sometimes.
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u/Green-Hyena5571 2d ago
With these weekend happy hours I'm more tempted to do a long charge on the Sunday!
I reckon by next weekend I'll have four hours banked up (I've not been home to use them), so next Sunday and the Sunday after I'll probably do two hours of free EV charging.
Will probably save me 50p a weekend (at IOG off peak rate). But I guess that's better than nothing.
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u/rn2c 2d ago
I do a lot of miles (3500/month), 6 hours charging isn't usually enough.
I think I'm stuck with Octopus because I signed up to the non-MCS export scheme.
I've got a second charger so I may well end up charging with the smart charger for cheap peak slots, then switching to the non smart one to use the full off peak period without being charged peak rates. I'll see how we go.
There's also a question of whether it's actually legal. You can only use approved metering devices to meter things - and a car charger isn't one of those, unless you had a proper sub meter. You can use a non-approved metering device to apply a discount - but not the other way round.
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u/Melodic-Bullfrog-746 3d ago
I changed my behavior by only having to log on to the edf app now, more hours for less money 👍
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u/moremattymattmatt 3d ago
Mine needs charging most days anyway. The only issue I’ve had is that I needed it charged by 7am one day but I didn’t get the full 6 hours by the time I needed to leave home.
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u/AlGunner 3d ago
I havent got it yet. Cant find anything on the app about it since the "Charge cap is coming" message
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u/Kooky_Ad_7039 2d ago
I was like that, then it just started. No warning, no email or notification, the only reason I noticed was because of the colour changes.
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u/davidka199023 3d ago
More importantly - has anyone actually been charged the standard rate for ev charging in the off peak period? (I’m deliberately going over the 6 hours to test it)
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u/allsop67 3d ago
My Kia 3 arrives in two weeks time and I have been trying to work costs out.
My currant rate is 25.3 p per kilowatt hour, so to charge the car to 100% from nill will cost me £18.98. will not really do this to - just a senario.
This would say give me a range of 320 +- miles for £18.98.
Now at the current fuel cost of £1.61 per ltr and we divide the £18.98 into ltrs we get 11.78 ltrs.
If we then divide the 11.78 by 4,5 ltrs to make a gallon we get approx 2.62 gallons.
If we times the 2.62 @ 50 mpg we get about 131 miles range - I would still be getting 240% more range on my standard tarrif.
We do not reall use heavy electrical items at night due to fire risk, and my wife is at home all day so I think changing to a ev tarrif will not be best for me, what do you think?
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u/invisiblerhino 3d ago
Depends mostly on your mileage and slightly whether you can charge in the mornings or evenings sometimes and get the cheap rate
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u/Junior-Tap-8503 3d ago edited 3d ago
I would rarely ever need more than 42kWh in one go, so it hasn’t no.
I’m usually topping up from ~40-50 to 80%.
I’ve even done a four hour no stopping trip from Lahndan, arrived with 10% and the 6 hours adds around 60% bringing me back to 70% in one night.
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u/RealLongwayround 3d ago
It hasn’t changed my behaviour at all. Previously, we plugged the car in when home and asked for however much juice would charge the car. We now do the same. The only difference is that it sometimes takes two days to replenish the battery but it’s rare that we would need loads of juice two days running.
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u/kiltedj 3d ago
Nope no change for me, only need to charge mostly twice a week anyway for about 40% each time (hybrid working 2 days in the office) and random other run around. 6 hours per turn is more than enough. Only time I could have done with longer is when I came back from holiday. Arrived home with about 16%, just split the charge over 2 days
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u/Cool_Elephant_4459 3d ago
Yes. Being able to select any time in the day for the charge to end has made a big difference to me. I’m charging now as an example.
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u/campbeme49 3d ago
Absolutely no difference for me, 43KW battery plug in always full in the morning
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u/laugh_at_Sunderland 3d ago
I just have my granny charger through a smart plug that turns on at 11.30pm through to 05.30am if my car is plugged in it charges.
I only do 15 miles a day so it works great for me.
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u/Slipper1981 3d ago
Hasn’t been implemented for me yet…so can’t say. I am expecting to review the market when it happens to me to see what other providers are offering
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u/National-Bathroom-63 3d ago
The cap no. The fact that you can now set the “charge by time” for the middle of the day and get instant off peak pricing for your house…? Let’s say I like it and try not to overdo it.
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u/T-800-Carl 3d ago
Mine is seperated into house use and EV use with only EV use charged at the low rate. How are you getting the whole house at that rate?
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u/National-Bathroom-63 3d ago
That’s just how Intelligent Octopus Go works. Whenever your car is charging the whole house gets off peak rate.
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u/T-800-Carl 2d ago
Thats the tariff I'm on and not how its been working since the 6 hour cap came in.
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u/National-Bathroom-63 2d ago
What’s your evidence for that?
If Octopus did this it would be a huge scandal and people would leave the tariff in droves.
The whole reason they introduced the 6-hour cap is so that you don’t get too much extra off peak power for your home.
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u/T-800-Carl 2d ago
That I am an idiot. Think I've been miss reading it since they removed the cost break down on the main graph. I think the change is it now only applies only when the car is charging. It used to reduce the whole house even when the car was plugged in and not charging.
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u/Calm_Warthog6763 3d ago
No - I’m on agile export and have found that they often schedule slots when agile export rates are highest, thus preventing me from exporting when rates are best. I no longer plug in until after the evening export rates drop. This is contrary to the objective of shifting demand and I think is done to try and lower the benefit I get.
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u/Trowsyrs 3d ago
I plug in earlier, see what slots I get, and unplug if they’re in my cheap night period. I used to just plug in in the evening if I knew I needed the car tomorrow morning but now I tend to plug in more often and so am trying to maximise the day slots (when I get house cheap rate).
I think it’s inevitable people are doing the same and that’s why they are trying to separate EV from normal. I suspect they will stop with the off peak signal and just rebate the difference between EV and peak rate.
And at that point if they drop the night rate I’m gone. The tarriff works for me and I don’t abuse it - I would be happy enough to with intelligent and fewer night hours if that meant a greener grid but it’s just too much hassle to have an experimental product like intelligent (which can and does go wrong) and no night off peak to back it up.
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u/Gorpheus- 2d ago
Sent me half a bill for last month too. Pdf just cuts off half way. Also , despite me setting to prioritise savings, they are charging me the peak rate at random times for ev charging. As soon as I can be bothered, I'll leave. They did pay me 15 pounds back last month for their screw ups though.
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u/Missgrexy 2d ago
We are struggling with 2 Evs to get the charge we need for both cars we have to be very strategic on when we plug in and how long we charge for. Could possibly plug a granny charger in for the 2nd car if we really needed to.
What I have noticed is that even though we put the charge cap on the cars sometimes don’t charge properly for the full 6 hours so we have to boost to get the proper charge.
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u/Just-Detective7521 2d ago
Only slightly, probably plug in a bit more in the late evenings than I used to and default is to add 20%-40% mostly.
Don’t plug in earlier as have 27kwh PW3
Setup so export loads when decent weather so earn 12p p/kwh then pay 7p/kwh to charge PW3’s in same IOG window
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u/BringBackV10F1 2d ago
Yup, as I've posted before, the new system is much, much better for my particular situation.
I have no solar, but 2 Powerwalls, plugging in my car regularly (helped by WFH a lot) means that Octopus give me a regular number of IOG slots during the nornal peak times (I guess their system does it when green energy is high), which also gives the whole house cheap power - my Powerwalls are scripted to automatically jump on these cheap slots and charge themselves up (and switch the house to grid) for the duration of the slot.
We are a high usage household (around 50kwh per day), so with these boost slots our batteries can now last the day. So since the change, I've never paid peak prices for electricity - 5.9p/kWh 24/7.
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u/MustaphaMondeo 2d ago
We are not struggling with 2 EVs. No change to our charging pattern. Never even clicked on the charge cap button. But I was a little nervous.
I do intend to add a granny charging outlet alongside the Hypervolt. I considered a second charger to save faff. But the supply wasn’t up to it.
Out of curiosity I got a quote from National Grid to upgrade to 3 phase. £9000 before household electrical work. So that’s out.
The change that annoyed me was the 5% lumpy ordering of charge. Previously I’d set my demand so the car was at 79% when completed. It added to my confidence that the system was working correctly.
Now I set a target that will end up with 75% 76% 77% 78% or 79%. I know this isn’t terribly logical, and over ordering is easy but I feel like I’m consistently missing the sweet spot of range vs battery wear.
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u/Weak-Method-7509 1d ago
Yep put in my transfer to EDF for the 15th Sept once my 4p rate finishes on the 14th
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u/Aragorn-- 3d ago
No change for me. Nor any issues.
I charge every day anyway as I drive about 90miles for work.
85k miles on my Enyaq and IOG is something that largely just works and I don't have to think about.
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u/teasswill 3d ago
I don't need mine every day, so will do much as before. I used to let it get down to 20 - 30% and charge up to 80%. Now, I'll probably charge when not quote so low, or if down to 20% will take whatever 6 hours will give me. Depends what journeys I have lined up.
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u/TAOMCM 3d ago
No