Content by GaryMG4 in December, 2025

if you charge at home then if you need to stop just add enough to get you home with a cushion (unless it's free, of course)

Pretty much exactly what I did in May before my Scotland trip, worked out fine.

We have oil heating but the rest is electric and 1.5 cars (only had 2nd one for 6 months) and around 8k miles each car. Our 4kW array has generated around 4mWh (on FiT) and we self consumed around 40% of that, that's why I need to investigate a battery to try and up that.

10! I just checked ours, a little over 4 so far this year. TBH smart charge has worked fine until the last couple of months. I would turn off smart charge if I just wanted to use the solar excess during the day but the rest of the time it worked flawlessly. Since they started with the odd short...

After the 'refuel in a minute' comment I was expecting; spontaneous combustion, brakes and tyres wearing out in 5k miles, council banned from multi story etc. etc.

Happened to me a couple of times but mine was 100% pilot error. I managed to switch the lights to off with that silly little switch on the stalk whilst going from dip to high beam (or reverse). Not a nice experience with Fenland roads with deep dykes just a few feet away parallel to the road.

Our Niro has it, like the older MG EV it has a front charge port so perhaps its because there is more chance of water getting in?

We have an MG4 and Kia Niro both 64kWh batteries with a Zappi. No issues really, the upcoming 6 hour limit on IOG means each car will get around 40kWh in any charging session, which is normally plenty. I have been trying their 'greener nights' initiative which is fine but delaying the charge...

It has been discussed a lot but I found when I used a power monitor with the 3 pin EVSE you could see the current slowly ramp down after it reached 80%. This could take 20 minutes much longer after a long break of doing any, before the car declared charge complete. This is the same behaviour as...

True, it's only that if the car is set to 80% and it stops there it will do a balance charge.

Interesting explanation but I'm not convinced. I tried exactly that scenario last week and it sailed on past 80% and stopped at 85% at 5:30. Whereas the previous attempt of setting the add %age to enough to reach 80% it stopped at 76%. I'm pretty sure this didn't happen until they changed how...

You can earn up to £1000 non ISA interest before tax (savings allowance, £500 if higher rate tax payer) then just to make things simple if your total income is £12,750 you can earn £5000 non ISA interest, but this tapers so if your income is £15,250 then £2500 non ISA interest is tax free...

Not really, as the SP counts towards the tax threshold, my SP including SERPS is above £12,570 so that portion is taxed as is any other income. The issue that has caused this is the freezing of the threshold for another 3 years, with the triple lock the SP is guaranteed to increase above the...

That might be interesting to try. When on Go I set the Tapo to switch on at 00:25 and the car to start at 00:30, finish at 05:30 and the Tapo to switch off at 05:35, primarily to record the amount used. At present I plan to charge the Niro on smart charge and MG4 on Zappi timed.

Do pay, I have an old defined benefit 'beer money' pension. they take half of that to pay the tax on the SP and 20% of the private pension.

I was in and out of SERPS over that period so I pay a little over £40 a month on my state pension.

Maybe it is location dependant, in an effort to balance the grid. I have noticed that Cambridge area will get some different 'offers' to mine even though it is not that far away. What I have noticed that since the greener nights initiative the %age added has been variable 50% requested 45-55...

Maybe they are fine tuning their algorithm, until the last couple of months the slots tended to be longer with positive breaks, lately the schedules have instances like 01:00-01:26, 01:26-02:35,03:00-03:15 etc. Sometimes even if the schedule shows a 3 continuous slot when you look at the logs...

I think the MG4 has the right balance, most of the things you need when driving are on the steering wheel and can be accessed by touch and of course the driver binnacle. I'd lose the pointless volume buttons and have a couple more customisable buttons in their place.

Our Niro is fine, the MG4 was fine until the latest changes to the schedules.

agree we have a Niro, loads of buttons seemingly randomly scattered over the dash. I much prefer the MG4 layout.

Correct, in the new year I want to investigate what AC coupled options there are, I'm still on FiT so don't want to disrupt it too much. In the summer the grid top up is negligible and I can max out 3.7kW. Winter I just charge overnight and even that is less than £20 a month for around 1000...

Another scenario for Phil to consider. I plug my car in at 9:00pm, and set the Zappi ECO to ensure the charge is not interrupted by the chaotic slots that seem to be set up currently. I ask smart charge for 40% by 8am. It schedules half a dozen slots between 2am and 6am, but does a quick 15...

It may be an issue with a 1st gen car software issue in combination with the Zappi. Ill mention it at the next service until then I'll just turn off smart charge for the MG and use it on the Niro.

Yesterday I had a similarly nonsensical answer. I mentioned problem where the chaotic schedules seem to cause the MG4 to abort the charge if the session stops and starts too many times. Their suggestion was to make sure the Zappi was on ECO+ to optimise the use of green energy. As ECO+ is...

I think it added around £5-6 to my last one on my Trophy, but I did do that with smart charge turned off to ensure it was one continuous charge with no breaks. Not really an issue cost wise as it is so infrequent.

That's why you need to be able to turn off smart charging. In the summer I'll mostly use Zappi ECO+ and decide how much (full price) grid power I want to add if the solar excess drops below 1.4kW, occasionally I'l turn on smart charge but only if I intend to continue the charge into the night...

If it is midday to midday then that will get me round the other potential problem of charging 2 cars on consecutive days where it schedules the first in the early morning slot and the second during the evening.

I agree, no battery here so I was thinking timed 6 hours with Zappi set to ECO so there would be a max of 18 x1.4kWh after the timed part using as much of my solar excess to finish off the charge.

Last month I attempted a calibration charge on the (64kWh) Niro. Plugged in at 8pm and requested 99% by 10am, it accepted 10am fine and despite initially scheduling 8pm to 6am it did most of the charge after midnight and stopped at 10am.

turn off smart charging while on solar, that way you won't be using any slots?

I managed a similar annual mileage for almost 2 years mostly with the 'granny'. I used a lot of solar excess in the summer. Ultimately I had a last minute 170 mile round trip in winter on fast roads that left me borderline getting home because I hadn't got enough in overnight. That and a small...

Curious, how does Octopus read the state of charge via a 3 pin.

Sadly this goes against the idea of greener nights. I have found that in trying to use greener nights for a month I tended to discharge deeper waiting for the greener night which then meant I was close to or over a 6 hour session. I think Ill just go back to how I was before.

I guess there's a good case for wanting 18 hrs charging then as an Octopus supplied charger puts an unfair restriction on those purchasers. On a similar vein my Zappi is a 3 phase version, although we are not 3 phase, does that mean if I was on 3 phase I would get a potential 6 x 22kWh (car...

Our older Niro doesn't seem to be affected by the change, although it may just be hidden.

Our washing machine has an odd timer, but I am able to set it so that the early part of the cycle (the most energy intense) occurs towards the end of the off peak time and the whole program finishes around 6:30, so the damp clothes don't sit in the machine for long.

I didn't realise you could get IOG with a three pin charger.

Over the last month or so I have been trying greener nights, this resulted in some really odd schedules and strange charging patterns with many breaks and restarts. This seems to have confused my MG4 causing it to constantly reset maximum charge to 100%. In an effort to stop it going above 80% I...

Do you just set a schedule every night and plug in as and when? When you turn on smart charge for your compulsory charge do you have to delete the schedule first? Just thinking......

For me I wanted to see what the fuss was about, I wanted a quiet car, attracted by low running costs and using some of my solar excess. As for saving the planet, I think the planet will get on fine once the next mass extinction (humans) happens, so the best way to expedite that is to burn as...

True normally, but I have one day (26/10/25) still showing on the app without cost. That day used 53 kWh when I charged both cars on consecutive nights because I tried their 'Greener Nights' option although the bill did show them as off-peak.

Up to now I always have paid the 7p rate, it will be interesting to see this months bill.

Correct, it's just that I wasn't aware that it was limited to 6 hours. I recently did a calibration charge on the Niro which consumed 65kWh. I'd set it up as a smart charge and gave them a 14 slot to fit it into not realising that 20 odd kWh would be charged at full rate.

I've just had a clarification email from Octopus that states, among other things."If we need to schedule more than 6 hours to reach your target charge, only the first 6 hours will be at the discounted rate - extra hours will be charged at your boost rate"

As far as I'm aware the Zappi has 3 modes, Fast, eco and eco+. Fast is just max charge rate, eco is use up to 1.4 kW from the grid plus any solar excess, eco+ allows you to set a max from the grid to add to the solar excess to maintain 1.4kW, so if a cloud comes across and your solar excess...

I think ours uses around 150W when running according to the IHD.

When we moved here we seemed to get a lot of power cuts that lasted a couple of hours or so. Fortunately we already had a wood burner but I did buy a cartridge gas burner. Good insurance as we haven't had one since, of course now I can plug the boiler into the car if needed.

As per title, I too have a Zappi. Not sure there's an option to specify a vehicle. You now get a message at the bottom of the schedule (on the app) telling you the slots may change.

I think Harry Metcalfe that the Sustain petrol he uses cost about £4.50 a litre and that's 20% fossil fuel.