Off Peak Charging - could Porsche have made it any more difficult!

[Heavywun]

Seems overly complicated. I have a Macan but could the Taycan really be so much more fiddly? (Porsche: Ya, of course!)

According to my manual, there are three circumstances where the car will ignore any timed charging settings:

1. battery below 25% when plugging in- it will immediately charge to 25% regardless of settings
2. You select 'direct charging' in the charge settings
3. You enable location based charging. If you do this, the vehicle will start charging regardless of time settings when it's at that location-
"During location-dependent charging, the high-voltage battery is automatically charged at a previously defined location, e.g. at home. Charging is determined by the location and begins as soon as the vehicle charging plug is plugged in."

You do have to set a departure. I just have a repeating departure for 5am every day. If the car is not plugged in, obviously nothing happens. Preferred charging times set to 2100-0500 - my current off peak rates.
so far I haven't had any problems. If I want a charge, I plug in when I get home, and it starts up after 9.
i do have 3 phase power and an 11kw ac charge rate, which is always enough to charge my battery off peak- I'm not sure what would happen if the allocated time slot would not be enough to reach the target charge.

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[bn8959]

If you have a compatible EVSE, I’d recommend Octopus Intelligent integrated to the that instead of the car. I have a MyEnergi Zappi and it works well (although Octopus have broken something recently which is causing charging plans to be descheduled but that’s a separate matter).

either with integration to EVSE or car, it should be simple. You just set in the Octopus app what percentage to add and by what time and it will schedule additional hours beyond the included 6 hours (which gives you lower rates for the rest of your house too).
I set a simple profile to 75% (no timers or preferred charging times) to limit the charge. I then just leave the octopus app to ‘add 100%’.

 

[bn8959]

https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/t...ent-last-week-issues.18393/page-3#post-306773

 

[tophamn]

If you have a compatible EVSE, I’d recommend Octopus Intelligent integrated to the that instead of the car. I have a MyEnergi Zappi and it works well (although Octopus have broken something recently which is causing charging plans to be descheduled but that’s a separate matter).

either with integration to EVSE or car, it should be simple. You just set in the Octopus app what percentage to add and by what time and it will schedule additional hours beyond the included 6 hours (which gives you lower rates for the rest of your house too).
I set a simple profile to 75% (no timers or preferred charging times) to limit the charge. I then just leave the octopus app to ‘add 100%’.

Exactly the same for me!

The advantage of getting Octopus to control the EVSE is you can prevent the car charging at all when plugged in, irrespective of the state of charge and the minimum set in the car's profile. Only when Octopus decides to charge, at the cheap rate, does it enable the EVSE to charge the car.

 

[W1NGE]

Seems overly complicated. I have a Macan but could the Taycan really be so much more fiddly? (Porsche: Ya, of course!)

According to my manual, there are three circumstances where the car will ignore any timed charging settings:

1. battery below 25% when plugging in- it will immediately charge to 25% regardless of settings
2. You select 'direct charging' in the charge settings
3. You enable location based charging. If you do this, the vehicle will start charging regardless of time settings when it's at that location-
"During location-dependent charging, the high-voltage battery is automatically charged at a previously defined location, e.g. at home. Charging is determined by the location and begins as soon as the vehicle charging plug is plugged in."

You do have to set a departure. I just have a repeating departure for 5am every day. If the car is not plugged in, obviously nothing happens. Preferred charging times set to 2100-0500 - my current off peak rates.
so far I haven't had any problems. If I want a charge, I plug in when I get home, and it starts up after 9.
i do have 3 phase power and an 11kw ac charge rate, which is always enough to charge my battery off peak- I'm not sure what would happen if the allocated time slot would not be enough to reach the target charge.

Not sure 'fiddly' is fair IMHO:

1. Default behaviour as documented - no issue with this
2. Default behaviour as documented - no issue with this (really only used when public AC charging and to be honest who does this?) OR if you want to override home profile / timers.
3. Incorrect, timer and profile settings will be adhered to (I can say with confidence for J1.1 and always used location based profiles for 2 separate geographical locations and worked exceptionally well). If the battery is < 25% SOC then obviously it will charge to that level regardless by design after which point the profile & timer combination takes control.

Before switching to OVO and their PCM-aware Charge Anytime tariff I could comfortably charge from 30% to 85% on single phase (7.4kW max) overnight during the off-peak period ready for an 08:30 departure.

Triple phase is an enviable luxury which you can clearly take advantage of - better still if the 22kW AC onboard charger option was available (and reliable).

 

[prj]

I solved it much simpler.

Wired a SONOFF TH Elite into my Wall charger's disable/key contact (it's there so that they can be turned off from inside with e.g. a key).

Added a little logic to Home Assistant to control it:

Now I have the prices per hour, and I can flip a switch next to each.
We have two EV's and two chargers with load balancing. They also talk to each other and the master forwards the "key" status to the slave. Otherwise I would have to faff around scheduling on two cars.

 

[anonymouse]

Forums like this (and the Tesla ones too) are full of tales of woe from people using electricity providers who have special apps to control charging times, which often conflict with the car's own software. It's just unnecessarily complicated.

In the UK the simplest solution is to have a wall charger which only enables power from 0000-0700; then sign up for something like E.On NextDrive that gives low-cost off peak power for that window. Then there is no need for any interfacing with the car. Might cost a few p more than Octopus but it saves a lot of hassle. And if you have solar with a battery, you can charge your house battery overnight too in that window and run the house on cheap electricity during the day.

 

[slothinker]

In addition to the Porsche software being overly complex, some of the answers are pretty confusing, at least to me.

Here is a simple goal:

1. Plug charger in at n time (say 7 p.m.)
2. Want to charge to a maximum of 85%.
3. Want charging to begin at n-x hours (say 9 a.m. the next day)
4. Want charging to end at y (say 4 p.m. the next day)

Would someone kindly point me to the steps needed to achieve something like this with the Porsche charging setup? Or is this not possible?

 

[Shug]

If you read the first post in this thread it tells you exactly how to calculate the time.

It is however dependant on the rate your charger can provide.

In my case, I have the Performance Battery Plus – 83.7 kWh usable, my charger provides 6.5KWH, so a total of 13 hours to go from 0 to 100% - accepted the last 20% will be slower.

Your time to charge may be different and the settings are explained in the first post

 

[prj]

If you read the first post in this thread it tells you exactly how to calculate the time.

It is however dependant on the rate your charger can provide.

In my case, I have the Performance Battery Plus – 83.7 kWh usable, my charger provides 6.5KWH, so a total of 13 hours to go from 0 to 100% - accepted the last 20% will be slower.

Your time to charge may be different and the settings are explained in the first post

No need for any of that, you can just set the charge target, and it obeys that charge target.
The description is just a little misleading.

Underneath it's exactly the same system as MEB, just on MEB you have the description on point whereas the Porsche is confusing.

 

[Murph7355]

Thanks Bennachie,

Is it the charger or the car that Octopus are managing?

Octopus manages the car in my case. Set the charge level you want, and the time you want it by, and it does the rest. It works very well.

I'm using the Porsche EVSE that came with the car, so no option of integrating with that.

If/when we get multiple EVs I'll change the charger so it can be integrated with Octopus instead.

 

[Shug]

There may be a mismatch between the conversations here.

This thread was about how to time charging with off-peak tariffs.

It is easy to set the time you want the car to be charged for using the Porsche menus.

Combining this with an understanding of the rate at which charging takes place allows you to estimate backwards from the time to end the charging, to set the required charge level.

Just like Murph7355 suggests he may do, I have taken a subscription with Octopus to simplify things - in my case I will let them control the car on/off charging times, but until that starts, I will estimate the additional charge I can add to calculate back from the end charging point to keep within off-peak times.

 

[daveo4EV]

Off Peak Charging - could Porsche have made it any more difficult!

yes - they don't even offer scheduling for their hybrids - you have 3 "departure" time timers and have virtually no control over during what period of time the car is allowed to charge or when it can start…

I've always been a huge critic of the charging controls in Taycan - but the Prosche hybrid charging controls are even worse...

so yeah - they could make it more difficult - they actually make it impossible!

 

[W1NGE]

In addition to the Porsche software being overly complex, some of the answers are pretty confusing, at least to me.

Here is a simple goal:

1. Plug charger in at n time (say 7 p.m.)
2. Want to charge to a maximum of 85%.
3. Want charging to begin at n-x hours (say 9 a.m. the next day)
4. Want charging to end at y (say 4 p.m. the next day)

Would someone kindly point me to the steps needed to achieve something like this with the Porsche charging setup? Or is this not possible?

Profile + Timer

You'll need a recurring timer in order to control the end of a specific charging session or if not you'll have to remember to remove your cable by 16:00.

My example here is for a J1.1 4S from 2021 using Porsche Mobile Charger Connect (PMCC). 85% target charge, ready by 07:00 and charge within preferred hours (off peak). Car charged within parameters set when connected on days chosen.

 

[slothinker]

Thanks very much!

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