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Hi all, I have been getting some good info under my other post about Bumble bee charger.
However the bottom line is, I am really worried about getting the Škoda Elroq EV I have ordered.
My worries are about charging, I want to come home, plug charger in at tea time, set it to start charging at 11.30, go to bed at 10 and get up next morning with a guaranteed full charge. I want this to happen every time without fail. Im with Octopus.
Judging by many accounts on here, this doesn’t happen. I’ve spoken to Octopus and Motability and neither have filled me with confidence.
Seriously thinking about watching new price list next week and hoping there’s is a suitable, reasonably priced hybrid and cancel EV.
Really don’t know how people put up with the vagaries of EV charging.
Regards, wonky
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Sorry if this isn’t relevant
I have Ohme home charger pro. I have two EV. one is a Ioniq 5 and the other is a Renault Zoe.
I use the octopus intelligent tariff. I plug my car in on an evening. I have both cars set up in my Ohme app and they are linked to the app via API. ( basically sign in using your sign in details for the car app)octopus and the charger do the rest, they will choose when to charge the car so it is charged to your preset level. It’s very rare you need to charge 0-100% if you have home charger of course. So generally speaking the “cheap night” hours are sufficient.
if you’re in a rush you can override the automatic scheduling and us MAX CHARGE and this will charge your car regardless of the tariff cost at the time.
Cheers, all the very best
Vaun
I have a Skoda Enyaq, Ohme Home Pro and Intelligent Octopus. I’ve had my car about 6 months now and never had an issue charging. I plug in when I get home, tell Ohme how much charge to add, then forget about it until the morning. It’s yet to fail me.
Just make sure the charger Bumblebee supply is compatible with Octopus as the Skoda can’t be controlled by Octopus.
if you’re in a rush you can override the automatic scheduling and us MAX CHARGE and this will charge your car regardless of the tariff cost at the time.
Not quite. That is why I choose to charge manually 11.00 at night on Max Charge it starts on the 7p/KwHr tariff as it is in IOG time. But it charges at full rate 7.39 Kw.
Only once have I charged during the day and it cost 26p/KwHr, or whatever the peak rate is, I have forgotten.
But Max Charge does what it says on the tin. The Ohme charger is essentially setup as a dumb charger.
I have an Ohme charger with lekky from Brit Gas. Car is VW ID.3. I do a very low mileage and do not use the reduced-price “special” charging rate. I have set the max charge to 80%. I have not connected the app things. So, when charging is needed, I simply plug in the charger; it fills it up to 80%. When light goes from green to white, I unplug. No problems at all.
I have a Skoda Enyaq, Ohme Home Pro and Intelligent Octopus. I’ve had my car about 6 months now and never had an issue charging. I plug in when I get home, tell Ohme how much charge to add, then forget about it until the morning. It’s yet to fail me. Just make sure the charger Bumblebee supply is compatible with Octopus as the Skoda can’t be controlled by Octopus.
Ditto with one difference: I set a cap of 8p with everything else AS IS. No issue with Skoda Enyaq nor with PHEV either.
Sent from a mobile device.
Apologies for briefness and spelling mistakes.Motability Skoda Enyaq SportLine 85x April 2024 (unhappy customer - Ombudsman pending)
Motability Mazda CX-60 July 2023 (unhappy customer - early termination on mechanical grounds)
Motability VW Touran Family Pack May 2019 (happy customer)Hi Collie, you have a Škoda and Intelligent Octopus, so similar to how I would be.
As the cheap rate is only 6 hours and not continuous during these 6 hours, to get say 50 Kw some charging must take place outside of cheap hours.
So if you plug in at say 7 pm and ask for 50 Kw ready for 7 am, is it all charged at low 7p rate?
Regards, wonky
One off topic thing to mention: In Skoda App I disabled “Current limiting” option as it could drop to 1.5kw (in my case) during night.
Sent from a mobile device.
Apologies for briefness and spelling mistakes.Motability Skoda Enyaq SportLine 85x April 2024 (unhappy customer - Ombudsman pending)
Motability Mazda CX-60 July 2023 (unhappy customer - early termination on mechanical grounds)
Motability VW Touran Family Pack May 2019 (happy customer)Octopus recently made some changes to IOG
Now, while your cheap charging rate still starts at 11:30pm, as long as your departure time is set between 8am and 11am you will get all of that charging at the cheap rate, not just the 6hrs from 11:30pm to 5:30am.
However, as Skoda/VW/Audi are once again preventing Octopus’s access to the cars API system more and more owners are finding thay can no longer just plug in anytime and set the Ohme App to charge to say 100% by 8am. The App cannot read the battery state of charge so once connected the car will start to charge from what the charger thinks is 0% to 100% straight away.
So at the moment there are two groups of Skoda/VW/Audi owners, those that can still charge as they always have done and those who’s car has received (I assume) an OTA update or server restriction to stop access to their API systems by 3rd parties (Octopus, Ohme etc.).
Now we have to wait until 11:30pm to connect and then set what percentage of charge we want to add. While it’s not a difficult way to do it it’s certainly less convienient for those of us whose mobility worsens during the day.
My work around is to have the Ohme App set to approve every connection before charging. that way I can plug the car in and forget about it. At 11:30 I click on “Approve Connection” then set the % of charge I want to add and the time I’d like it completed by. As long as that’s inside the 11:30pm-11:00am period Octopus/Ohme will then work out how it can be completed at cheap rate and get on with it.
Please excuse spelling/typos. Apart from being a clot it turns out I had one on my cerebellum that's now causing various problems!
As the cheap rate is only 6 hours and not continuous during these 6 hours
Intelligent Octopus (IOG) has a off peak window between 23:30 – 05:30 where you will get a full 6 hours at 7p kWh. This part of IOG is just like any other tariff on the market, where you schedule charging between the cheap rate hours.
The intelligent part of Octopus comes in after the off peak window has finished and by setting a ready by time (8am or 11am) you extend your off peak hours but, charging between say 05:30 and 11:00 is only done when the grid is at its greenes’t or rather has spare capacity, so this part fluctuates when the car is charged/not charged however, theoretically your car will be charged to the set % by the ready by time you set.
Hi Kezo and Phaedra, thanks for info.
It’s a shame the extended hours can’t come in before 11.30pm, I don’t want to be around as late as that, Im done for and in bed by 10pm.
How would I get round this? Ideally I’d like to physically put the lead into car at 7pm and programme and forget and get it all at cheap rate by 8 or 9 am, even if I needed say 50 Kw.
Regards, wonky
I don’t understand what the problem is. It sounds like you’ve made it up.
With my previous ID3 and now with the Enyaq, you just plug in and walk away at any time of day. A charge session is then set by Intelligent Octopus Go (IOG) and the car is charged by whatever time you set, I use 8am.
Is it guaranteed? No. Has it ever failed me, probably, but so infrequent I forget.
The idea of IOG is to balance the grid. Don’t go all weird and swap out your EV order!!
Skoda Enyaq Race Blue
Hi Kezo and Phaedra, thanks for info. It’s a shame the extended hours can’t come in before 11.30pm, I don’t want to be around as late as that, Im done for and in bed by 10pm. How would I get round this? Ideally I’d like to physically put the lead into car at 7pm and programme and forget and get it all at cheap rate by 8 or 9 am, even if I needed say 50 Kw. Regards, wonky
There might be extra slots available at off peak rates 08:00/11:00 and 23:30 but this is not a given, plus Octopus has changed things about.
In your case you would plug the car in 19:00 and set a ready by time for 08:00 and your car will be charged by the amount you specify.
Try not to look into it too much! Wait untill you have your Elroq and Hypervolt 3 and through trial and error you will start to get to grips with it more and begin to understand more easily without confusion. If you find you don’t like IOG there are more than one tariff on the market that will give you circa 5okWh overnight that are more easy to navigate. Dont worry.
Remember there is always help available!
Hi Kezo, many thanks for that, your input has been much appreciated and your knowledge is better than Motability or Octopus.
I feel more confident to sit back and let it happen, Iv been trying to sort any potential problems before I enter my Pin.
Exchange is scheduled for mid May.Regards, wonky
I have a Qubev charger that is not a smart charger. As such I am on Octupus Go, not Intelligent.
I simply plug in and schedule off my charger for it to charge between 0030 and 0530 my cheap times. never had an issue. You could schedule in the car as well if you preferred (I did this on my previous EV).
I have a Qubev charger that is not a smart charger. As such I am on Octupus Go, not Intelligent. I simply plug in and schedule off my charger for it to charge between 0030 and 0530 my cheap times. never had an issue. You could schedule in the car as well if you preferred (I did this on my previous EV).
Do you have the old brick type Qubev or the newer one?
As long as Octopus is controlling your dynamic charging, everything is at the lower rate. I have my Ohme Pro set to be ready by 5 a.m. (I had this confirmed by Octopus). I plug it in, and regardless of the time of day, it will be charged at 7p per kWh. I have the charger set to add 100% and just leave the car plugged in when not in use.
Which is exactly what I, and many orthers used to be able to do. Unfortunately with Skoda/VW once again blocking 3rd party access to their cars API systems Octopus/Ohme can no longer do this.
It doesn’t (yet) affect all Skoda/VW cars but there were reports on the various Skoda forums about it happening well before mine started to have the same issue.
Octopus/Ohme have sent a message on the App to those affected saying that due to the API being inaccessable they cannot now read the batteries state of charge and therefore are unable to offer Dynamic Charging to those affected. We will just have to connect at 23:30 and set the App to add a specific charge percentage and an end time between 8am and 11am.
Please excuse spelling/typos. Apart from being a clot it turns out I had one on my cerebellum that's now causing various problems!
Never had a problem in the nearly 4 years I’ve been charging, but then, I am on Octopus Go & have a Viridian SimplEV charger (was a pre-production unit I got for £300, now sold on their site – but not for the UK), so I just use the car’s inbuilt schedule to charge from 0:30 to 5:30am. I can plug in at any time, it only charges on the schedule.
Phaedra and others affected by the new lack of access to the API on their VW group cars can do the same, so you could plug in and just forget about it, let the car take the strain instead of the Octopus/charger app.
In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out.
I have free electricity all day today (thank you EDF) so I plugged in the Ariya and for the first time, Ohme asked me to pair the car so I did. I had to input my Nissan App log in details and hey presto the car is now paired with the Ohme charger so it knows how much charge is in the car when I plug it in – it didn’t before.
Happy days.
Have an ID.4 with an Ohme Pro charging unit at home and on British Gas EV tariff at present.
Have the price cap set to 7.91P through the Ohme app, and plug it in at night before I go to bed* then get ~5hrs charge between midnight and 5am with no bother.
Normally I plug it in everytime it drops to about 40%, but when it was raining last month a lot I ran it down to 5%.
The only problem was it curbs the cars power to preserve the battery. I can put up with such vagaries, for £6 a tank 🙂
*I plug mine in at around 6pm usually before it gets dark
Asked Octopus about dynamic charging pricing and if I plug in at any time does the lower rate still work this is the answer:
“As we’re connected through your Ohme charger this should be absolutely fine, but if you have any queries about your bill once this is issued to you please let us know and we’ll investigate ASAP.”
So plug in whenever you want to and then if they decide to charge through dynamic charging then it’s fine. We have ours set to add 100% by 5am so plugin when we are at home and leave it to itself. This was the example I gave them and the answer above.
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