Yet another charging query......................

[Biggles]

Thank you - I just want to come home and plug the thing in - I have enough mental maths during the day thanks.

I just find it hard to believe that something as simple as a defined on and off time isn't possible.

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[daveo4EV]

Thank you - I just want to come home and plug the thing in - I have enough mental maths during the day thanks.

I just find it hard to believe that something as simple as a defined on and off time isn't possible.

german software - what you want is 100% reasonable - and impossible with taycan’s timers and profile approach - it’s overly complex for very little value

its frustrating

 

[Watchesandburgers]

If your charge window is 00:30-05:30, that might not be enough to get you from 25% to 85% in a single charge session. How many miles-per-hour of charge do you get? A 220v x 40 amp circuit = 8.8 kw will get you 30 miles per hour of charging. Five hours is 150 miles total. If you have perhaps 215 miles of range at 85%, that means you need 65 miles of range when you start charging at 00:30.

TLDR: Go to the Profiles page on your mobile device and increase the Minimum Charge from 25% to 30%. This will charge the car immediately at plug-in to 30%, then wait until your preferred charging time (00:30) before charging the rest of the way. If that's not enough, increase the min charge to 35%, etc.

 

[MarkR]

Hi All, i have recently moved to Octopus Intelligent Go. I have the charge set to be ready by 5.30am through the Octopus app (thinking this will mean I am not charging at peak rate after this). I don't have a profile set up and I have deleted most of my timers, except one that is just for the climate control to heat the cabin. The app controls the car directly amd not the EVSE.

When i plug in, the car starts to charge immediately, which having read the above might be normal. I would have expected the app to stop the charge and then wait until the time it shows in the schedule in the app. However it doesn't stop. An example was last night, I had 68% charge and I wanted to take it to 85% by 5.30am. I plugged in at 10pm, and it immediately charged for about 2 hours, then stopped and the started again for 30 mins or so overnight. Does anyone know if this is normal and that Octopus will charge me the low rate for the charges outside of the 11.30pm to 5.30am times or if I should be speaking to them about this?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Biggles]

Morning - this is exactly the issue I have experienced and after much investigation have concluded what you are trying to do cant be done with the logic used by Porsche in its charging strategy.
The best you can do to target the 00:30 to 05:30 is to set up both a Timer and profile as below:

Timer.
Ready for departure at 05:30
Repeat on
All days of the week
Remote climate off
Charging on at 85%
Confirm

Profile
Min charge 25%
Optimised charging Off
Preferred charging period Start 00:30 & End 05:30

This is the only way you will get anywhere near where you need to be.
If the car is below 25% when you plug in it will automatically call for charge despite the above settings. If your home charger has a timer function set that to only come on at 00:30 to prevent the car pulling energy before cheap rate.

This is the best you will be able to do - disappointing but the whole "Depart by" time is the fly in the ointment.

good luck

 

[MarkR]

Morning - this is exactly the issue I have experienced and after much investigation have concluded what you are trying to do cant be done with the logic used by Porsche in its charging strategy.
The best you can do to target the 00:30 to 05:30 is to set up both a Timer and profile as below:

Timer.
Ready for departure at 05:30
Repeat on
All days of the week
Remote climate off
Charging on at 85%
Confirm

Profile
Min charge 25%
Optimised charging Off
Preferred charging period Start 00:30 & End 05:30

This is the only way you will get anywhere near where you need to be.
If the car is below 25% when you plug in it will automatically call for charge despite the above settings. If your home charger has a timer function set that to only come on at 00:30 to prevent the car pulling energy before cheap rate.

This is the best you will be able to do - disappointing but the whole "Depart by" time is the fly in the ointment.

good luck

Thanks John. I will take a look and see if this works.
Best regards.

 

[tophamn]

Hi All, i have recently moved to Octopus Intelligent Go....

Your setup relies on Octopus being able to reliably talk to your car through Porsche's servers - and my experience suggests this is unreliable. As you say, when you plug in the charge starts immediately and you need Octopus to realise you plugged in and program a profile/timer in your car to stop it. Charging should then resume on the schedule set by Octopus, at the cheap rate.

If you plug in outside the cheap window (23:30 - 05:30) any charge taken then will NOT be at the cheap rate. Only when Octopus has created a charging schedule and programmed your profile/timer in the car will you get cheap electric outside the normal window, according to the schedule.

I gave up on allowing Octopus to integrate with the Taycan and use the integration with my EVSE (Zappi) instead - this works every time. I set the Octopus app to charge some percentage more than I really need, then have a single profile in the car set to 75% (the car says "minimum" but it stops here); I have no charging timer set, only climate pre-conditioning. Note also in this setup the car does not start charging when first plugged in, irrespective of time - the car complains it can't charge but this is normal as the EVSE is preventing it until the scheduled charge time.

 

[MarkR]

Your setup relies on Octopus being able to reliably talk to your car through Porsche's servers - and my experience suggests this is unreliable. As you say, when you plug in the charge starts immediately and you need Octopus to realise you plugged in and program a profile/timer in your car to stop it. Charging should then resume on the schedule set by Octopus, at the cheap rate.

If you plug in outside the cheap window (23:30 - 05:30) any charge taken then will NOT be at the cheap rate. Only when Octopus has created a charging schedule and programmed your profile/timer in the car will you get cheap electric outside the normal window, according to the schedule.

I gave up on allowing Octopus to integrate with the Taycan and use the integration with my EVSE (Zappi) instead - this works every time. I set the Octopus app to charge some percentage more than I really need, then have a single profile in the car set to 75% (the car says "minimum" but it stops here); I have no charging timer set, only climate pre-conditioning. Note also in this setup the car does not start charging when first plugged in, irrespective of time - the car complains it can't charge but this is normal as the EVSE is preventing it until the scheduled charge time.

Thanks Neil. I can't use my EVSE as for some reason it will not connect to Wifi, so am just using that as a dumb terminal.i'll try a few things to sort this out and hopefully get the cheap rate I am after.

 

[Fish Fingers]

I always had issues with my car and Octopus IG.

I would get lots of error messages (see pic) and in the morning it would usually be short or over my set charge.
Or had not activated at all.

It was down to the poor connection with the car where we live. Vodafone signal is non existent here.

Sometimes I would get dozens of these messages - starting as soon as it plugged in.....even if it only needed say 10%, 10 hours later.

I had to work round it just using the EVSE timer instead.

 

[MarkR]

I always had issues with my car and Octopus IG.

I would get lots of error messages (see pic) and in the morning it would usually be short or over my set charge.
Or had not activated at all.

It was down to the poor connection with the car where we live. Vodafone signal is non existent here.

Sometimes I would get dozens of these messages - starting as soon as it plugged in.....even if it only needed say 10%, 10 hours later.

I had to work round it just using the EVSE timer instead.

That sounds frustrating. Mine has charged each time, but i believe it is just not stopping the charge outside of the window.

 

[Jhenson29]

Morning - this is exactly the issue I have experienced and after much investigation have concluded what you are trying to do cant be done with the logic used by Porsche in its charging strategy.
The best you can do to target the 00:30 to 05:30 is to set up both a Timer and profile as below:

Timer.
Ready for departure at 05:30
Repeat on
All days of the week
Remote climate off
Charging on at 85%
Confirm

Profile
Min charge 25%
Optimised charging Off
Preferred charging period Start 00:30 & End 05:30

This is the only way you will get anywhere near where you need to be.
If the car is below 25% when you plug in it will automatically call for charge despite the above settings. If your home charger has a timer function set that to only come on at 00:30 to prevent the car pulling energy before cheap rate.

This is the best you will be able to do - disappointing but the whole "Depart by" time is the fly in the ointment.

good luck

In that setup, the profile doesn’t do anything. The timer alone will accomplish the same thing.

A profile with min 25% and preferred times that end at a timer departure time serves no purpose.

 

[MarkR]

In that setup, the profile doesn’t do anything. The timer alone will accomplish the same thing.

A profile with min 25% and preferred times that end at a timer departure time serves no purpose.

Update: So I put in a timer for every day, which has an end time of 05.30am and plugged in last night.

Woke up this morning and it was not charged. The timer has disappeared and a new one has appeared. I asume Octopus has removed my one and added it's own.

So it seems that by adding my own timer doesn't help.

Looks like I don't have any other option but to plug in at 11.30pm if i want to only get charged the low rate. Quite inconvenient really.

 

[Bennachie]

Let the EVSE do it.................. assuming you have an intelligent EVSE

 

[MarkR]

Let the EVSE do it.................. assuming you have an intelligent EVSE

I'm afraid I can't do that. My EVSE is not connecting to my wifi, and so I can't use this at the moment. I am trying to get this sorted, so once that is fixed it should allow me to. In the meantime, it looks like I will not be able to just plug in anytime.

I wonder if there is a check on the Octopus app to check the handshake? I will look for this, just to make sure it is working as expected, failing this, I could delete the connection to the car and reconnect.

 

[Fish Fingers]

Update: So I put in a timer for every day, which has an end time of 05.30am and plugged in last night.

Woke up this morning and it was not charged. The timer has disappeared and a new one has appeared. I asume Octopus has removed my one and added it's own.

So it seems that by adding my own timer doesn't help.

Looks like I don't have any other option but to plug in at 11.30pm if i want to only get charged the low rate. Quite inconvenient really.

That is how it works.

The Octopus one (called Enode) appears with a random time and replaces yours each time ypu plug in.
They actually advise not to use your own timers if using Octopus IG.

Then it will tend to stop and start a number of times overnight - usually in 30m slots reaching the set charge by 05.30.

It never worked properly in my Taycan.......the car would not pick up the instructions to start/stop and it usually ended up not charging, short charging or over charging.
It was a real PITA.

I had to work round it using the evse timer in the end.

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