MG4, Zappi and Octopus Intelligent Go

[LenEV2016]

Oh dear, come the end of January 2026 then what I’ve said above will no longer be the case . Looks like they’ll implement the option to restrict to 6 hours in their app to support this change.

Upcoming changes to Intelligent Octopus Go

Intelligent Octopus Go has always offered super-cheap power for your whole home every night and smart charging to let you charge cleaner for less.To keep our off-peak rates as low as possible, in 2026 we will be updating Intelligent Octopus Go to automatically apply the 6 hour limit for...

octopus.energy

Big chat online with an octopus exec this morning about it and reading between the lines it's been brought in to combat the gaming of the system that has been going on, there was also mention of cars with massive batteries charging longer than the 6 hours therefore getting extra periods.
The general consensus seems to be the greedy have ruined it for everyone else!.

However if I now have a car with a 100kwh battery I know the max I can put into it overnight with IOG is probably just under 40kwh with losses, so less than 40%

Again another reason to look at efficiency

 

[gary333]

Big chat online with an octopus exec this morning about it and reading between the lines it's been brought in to combat the gaming of the system that has been going on, there was also mention of cars with massive batteries charging longer than the 6 hours therefore getting extra periods.
The general consensus seems to be the greed have ruined it for everyone else!.

However if I now have a car with a 100kwh battery I know the max I can put into it overnight with IOG is probably just under 40kwh with losses, so less than 40%

Again another reason to look at efficiency

I don't know why Octopus don't just set a wholesale threshold price in the background (they don't need to tell us) to simply block out problematic intervals. To further mitigate their risk (and help the grid) they could use previous customer charge data to create a "user" score which could be used in conjunction with wholesale price to allocate more flexibility to those who use the tariff like they want, and downgrade the ones who do not. It seems a much simpler way of giving the best of both worlds to customer and Octopus.

If a customer requests a charge rate that is too high, just tell customer the charge level cannot be achieved, and what they can achieve in the timeframe asked for (or ask them to bump/max charge). Using this method they then still have the ability to turn on car charging at any point by adjusting the schedules to help out with grid fluctuations.

This new process will just lead to customers setting a fixed schedule (like what Tsedge foreshadowed) and then any grid support aims of this tariff will be lost outside of the off peak charging hours.

 

[raynard]

Big chat online with an octopus exec this morning about it and reading between the lines it's been brought in to combat the gaming of the system that has been going on, there was also mention of cars with massive batteries charging longer than the 6 hours therefore getting extra periods.
The general consensus seems to be the greed have ruined it for everyone else!.

However if I now have a car with a 100kwh battery I know the max I can put into it overnight with IOG is probably just under 40kwh with losses, so less than 40%

Again another reason to look at efficiency

Just got my email that the 6 hour limit will start at the end of January

 

[LenEV2016]

Well summed up by Graeme Cobb

 

[gary333]

Well summed up by Graeme Cobb

View attachment 41694

The elephant in the room are Ohme's chargers where Octopus can lower the charging current and cause the charge to be stretched out over the requested 6 hours, even though the punter asked for a level of charge that should have been deliverable in the said 6 hours. This would be ca-ching to them at the customers detriment, and all quite opaque. Hopefully they address this issue soon, else charging using an Ohme could become Russian roluette.

 

[LenEV2016]

The elephant in the room are Ohme's chargers where Octopus can lower the charging current and cause the charge to be stretched out over the requested 6 hours, even though the punter asked for a level of charge that should have been deliverable in the said 6 hours. This would be ca-ching to them at the customers detriment, and all quite opaque. Hopefully they address this issue soon, else charging using an Ohme could become Russian roluette.

This was discussed with the ohme exec Philip Steele (future technologies) zappi and hypervolt owners stated they had the same issue and he promised to look into it

 

[gary333]

This was discussed with the ohme exec Philip Steele (future technologies) zappi and hypervolt owners stated they had the same issue and he promised to look into it

Brill, although makes you wonder how they didn't know this was happening to counter this before they went wild with their emails and updates

 

[tsedge]

However if I now have a car with a 100kwh battery I know the max I can put into it overnight with IOG is probably just under 40kwh with losses, so less than 40%

Again another reason to look at efficiency

I thought you wouldn't miss another chance to bring this up!

To be fair, it isn't really relevant how much it takes to fill your car, really it is how far you drive in a day before getting home. For most people this is the same regardless of the car and is much less than 40kWh.

At the most, this will involve plugging it in more nights per week, but even then only if you do the mileage in the week needed to do that.

Returning home empty after a long trip will just take 2 or so days to refill to 80%, which won't be a big deal unless you are someone who does a lot of daily long-distance, in which case you'd probably be better off with a diesel at this point anyway.

 

[gary333]

I thought you wouldn't miss another chance to bring this up!

To be fair, it isn't really relevant how much it takes to fill your car, really it is how far you drive in a day before getting home. For most people this is the same regardless of the car and is much less than 40kWh.

At the most, this will involve plugging it in more nights per week, but even then only if you do the mileage in the week needed to do that.

Returning home empty after a long trip will just take 2 or so days to refill to 80%, which won't be a big deal unless you are someone who does a lot of daily long-distance, in which case you'd probably be better off with a diesel at this point anyway.

First world problem I know however this change will likely result in my car taking a beating by sitting at 100% much more often. At present i try and keep it 80% or below, knowing I can charge outside of peak time. However, going forward I will likely have to charge up to 100% and just leave it there so I am not put in a position that I don't have the charge I need.

Now, my car (even though i don't like it) is a lease, however i do like to try and protect it best I can for the next owner who picks it up.

 

[Griffian]

Our ER can take about 6.8 kWh. So in six hours, that's 40 kWh. To do a 10-100 70kWh equalisation charge is going to cost at least another £8.50 for the extra 30kWh. At least it's only quarterly.

 

[mg4mc]

But the customer doesn't ask for "6 hours @ 7Kw", they ask for a total kWh to be delivered by an end time? So long as that is delivered what does it matter if some slots are "slowed down".

Edit: ah! I see the point about reduced charge rate and exceeding the 6 hours. Something Octopus need to look at

 

[gary333]

But the customer doesn't ask for "6 hours @ 7Kw", they ask for a total kWh to be delivered by an end time? So long as that is delivered what does it matter if some slots are "slowed down".

Because the billing of said charge will be done on time not energy delivered. Soon as you tick over 6 hours of charging (even if it's a 0.12kw) will lead to all energy after this time being charged at full price.

 

[LenEV2016]

I thought you wouldn't miss another chance to bring this up!

To be fair, it isn't really relevant how much it takes to fill your car, really it is how far you drive in a day before getting home. For most people this is the same regardless of the car and is much less than 40kWh.

At the most, this will involve plugging it in more nights per week, but even then only if you do the mileage in the week needed to do that.

Returning home empty after a long trip will just take 2 or so days to refill to 80%, which won't be a big deal unless you are someone who does a lot of daily long-distance, in which case you'd probably be better off with a diesel at this point anyway.

Therein lies the issue with a big battery reasonably inefficient car.
As you say if you tend to do shortish journeys then it's not a problem (in terms of going over the six hours) if you do a couple of longer journeys a week and the price goes up.

Who really wants to go back to a diesel, having driven an EV!

 

[mg4mc]

Most people could probably spread a big charge over a couple of days. For those that can't (big milers) the part of the charge at the bump rate is still much cheaper than public charging.

But I guess if this is enforced without any tweaks, you'd need to compare the overall IOG cost against other tariffs. You would need to compare over a period that was fair reflection of say monthly average cost.