Octopus Go Intelligent new 6 hours charging limit

[GaryMG4]

Doesn't sound excessive to me - depends on how much you drive and/or use electricity around the house. Just checked... we're similar to @Tig170 having used 9.8MWh so far... but fortunately we generated 10.5MWh from solar in the year to date

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.

 

[Rolfe]

Thank you all for your concern. I'm surrounded by extremely nosy neighbours, and they're on alert to be exceptionally nosy any time I'm away. Oh, and the burglar alarm has just been serviced.

 

[Old Codger]

As a newcomer to EVs and this forum (but not to the world - clue's in my user name) I've waded through the whole of this lengthy and interesting thread and not really arrived at a solution to my problem. Background : wanting to do an equalisation charge on my MGS5. On Octopus IOG, with Hypervolt Pro3 wall charger; if you lived here and had a mobile phone you'd know why! We don't have solar because our roof faces east and west. I've no interest in 'gaming the system' - I just want, like most here I guess, to do my periodical 100% charge at minimum cost. So in words that an 'elderly person' with an electrical engineering degree from 55 years ago, never used in anger, and 30 years in IT almost all in Cobol programming on character based systems can understand : what is the most economical; setup for tonight's overnight charge? Battery is at 15%, it's a nominal 64kWh.

Help and advice will of course be appreciated.

 

[EVsince2016]

As a newcomer to EVs and this forum (but not to the world - clue's in my user name) I've waded through the whole of this lengthy and interesting thread and not really arrived at a solution to my problem. Background : wanting to do an equalisation charge on my MGS5. On Octopus IOG, with Hypervolt Pro3 wall charger; if you lived here and had a mobile phone you'd know why! We don't have solar because our roof faces east and west. I've no interest in 'gaming the system' - I just want, like most here I guess, to do my periodical 100% charge at minimum cost. So in words that an 'elderly person' with an electrical engineering degree from 55 years ago, never used in anger, and 30 years in IT almost all in Cobol programming on character based systems can understand : what is the most economical; setup for tonight's overnight charge? Battery is at 15%, it's a nominal 64kWh.

Help and advice will of course be appreciated.

I would do that on a granny lead once about 98% is reached.

 

[MG Clive]

Welcome to the forum @Old Codger, I bet you're not as old as your Avatar locomotive

 

[Old Codger]

Welcome to the forum @Old Codger, I bet you're not as old as your Avatar locomotive

Busted! I'm not far off though. But thank you for the welcome

I would do that on a granny lead once about 98% is reached.

I hadn't thought of that solution. It's expensive, since I don't have a granny lead and have so far only done 1400 miles and haven't needed to charge away from home. The longest journey so far has been about 170 miles, managed comfortably on 90% starting charge, and I've accepted the need to use public chargers (or trains - clue's in the avatar!) for the occasional longer trip. Usually I keep to 80%, one of the few bits of conventional wisdom which seems to be generally accepted. That said, I assume the logic is that a granny lead would guarantee a slow charge for the balancing bit?

 

[EVsince2016]

I hadn't thought of that solution. It's expensive, since I don't have a granny lead and have so far only done 1400 miles and haven't needed to charge away from home. The longest journey so far has been about 170 miles, managed comfortably on 90% starting charge, and I've accepted the need to use public chargers (or trains - clue's in the avatar!) for the occasional longer trip. Usually I keep to 80%, one of the few bits of conventional wisdom which seems to be generally accepted. That said, I assume the logic is that a granny lead would guarantee a slow charge for the balancing bit?

I've been an EV driver for 10 years and travel abroad, as in the list below.

Public charging should be easy, just avoid British motorways during holiday / summer weekends!

 

[tsedge]

As a newcomer to EVs and this forum (but not to the world - clue's in my user name) I've waded through the whole of this lengthy and interesting thread and not really arrived at a solution to my problem. Background : wanting to do an equalisation charge on my MGS5. On Octopus IOG, with Hypervolt Pro3 wall charger; if you lived here and had a mobile phone you'd know why! We don't have solar because our roof faces east and west. I've no interest in 'gaming the system' - I just want, like most here I guess, to do my periodical 100% charge at minimum cost. So in words that an 'elderly person' with an electrical engineering degree from 55 years ago, never used in anger, and 30 years in IT almost all in Cobol programming on character based systems can understand : what is the most economical; setup for tonight's overnight charge? Battery is at 15%, it's a nominal 64kWh.

Help and advice will of course be appreciated.

Welcome!

So your 64kWh is about 61kWh usable capacity so if you need 85% to charge to 100% at the average (at car) 6.4kW wall charger you need about 8 hours 10 minutes plus balancing time, let's say 9h total.

With IOG you have 6 hours fixed hours at low rate plus whatever slots you get.

So for a normal balance to 100% I would just do a regular IOG charge and set the delta high enough to allow for some losses or if you have the target charge only, balance after it hits 100% using a bump charge.

If you are talking about a calibration charge when you want uninterrupted charging, IOG slots are no good to you, so you need to bump charge within two hours of the cheap rate: eg 9.30pm put it on a bump charge and it will charge until the car stops it, which will cost you 12.8kWh at day rate and 38.4kWh at night rate plus what is needed to finish and balance: say another 5kWh at your day rate.

 

[Gomev]

As a newcomer to EVs and this forum (but not to the world - clue's in my user name) I've waded through the whole of this lengthy and interesting thread and not really arrived at a solution to my problem. Background : wanting to do an equalisation charge on my MGS5. On Octopus IOG, with Hypervolt Pro3 wall charger; if you lived here and had a mobile phone you'd know why! We don't have solar because our roof faces east and west. I've no interest in 'gaming the system' - I just want, like most here I guess, to do my periodical 100% charge at minimum cost. So in words that an 'elderly person' with an electrical engineering degree from 55 years ago, never used in anger, and 30 years in IT almost all in Cobol programming on character based systems can understand : what is the most economical; setup for tonight's overnight charge? Battery is at 15%, it's a nominal 64kWh.

Help and advice will of course be appreciated.

I would say keep it simple. Doesn't matter what state of charge you start at just fully charge it to 100% and allow it finish in it's own time. Equalisation done.
Calibration charge is different and supposedly has to go from 10% ish to 100% in one straight charge. I have never done one in over 5 years of EV owning with 3 different cars and not doing so it has made no difference to range or battery health.
Keep to the 80% for normal day to day if you don't need any more but when you do just charge to 100%. The only real recommendation is don't leave it at 100% or very very low for any length of time otherwise charge it to what you want, when you want. There are many people that charge to 100% every night.
Public charging is not a problem, have a trial go at one locally just to get the hang of it. You don't need to spend a lot, just start it, give it a few seconds and then stop the charge. Job done and you know what to do on the road.
but as @EVsince2016 says

Public charging should be easy, just avoid British motorways during holiday / summer weekends!

But that goes for any sane person driving any car.

Just enjoy the car and don't overthink the whole charging thing, it's just fuel you put in like any car. Long journeys are suddenly enjoyable in an EV and the short break for charging if needed after 1, 2 or 3 hours driving (it often isn't) is just an opportunity for cake and coffee and adds to the pleasure...after all we're not in a rush are we ???

 

[LenEV2016]

I would say keep it simple. Doesn't matter what state of charge you start at just fully charge it to 100% and allow it finish in it's own time. Equalisation done.
Calibration charge is different and supposedly has to go from 10% ish to 100% in one straight charge. I have never done one in over 5 years of EV owning with 3 different cars and not doing so it has made no difference to range or battery health.
Keep to the 80% for normal day to day if you don't need any more but when you do just charge to 100%. The only real recommendation is don't leave it at 100% or very very low for any length of time otherwise charge it to what you want, when you want. There are many people that charge to 100% every night.
Public charging is not a problem, have a trial go at one locally just to get the hang of it. You don't need to spend a lot, just start it, give it a few seconds and then stop the charge. Job done and you know what to do on the road.
but as @EVsince2016 says

But that goes for any sane person driving any car.

Just enjoy the car and don't overthink the whole charging thing, it's just fuel you put in like any car. Long journeys are suddenly enjoyable in an EV and the short break for charging if needed after 1, 2 or 3 hours driving (it often isn't) is just an opportunity for cake and coffee and adds to the pleasure...after all we're not in a rush are we ???

Great post.

I have also never done a calibration charge and on my 3rd EV, same as you no issues with battery health or range, batteries are far more robust than initially reported.

Same as you I also do my equalisation charges from any range normally mid to high 20s or low 30s, no issues with NMC batteries, never had a car with LFP battery.

Enjoy your car

 

[GaryMG4]

If you are talking about a calibration charge when you want uninterrupted charging, IOG slots are no good to you, so you need to bump charge within two hours of the cheap rate: eg 9.30pm put it on a bump charge and it will charge until the car stops it, which will cost you 12.8kWh at day rate and 38.4kWh at night rate plus what is needed to finish and balance: say another 5kWh at your day rate.

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