Electric Cars.

[Ron Gray]

I received an email from Octopus a week or so back inviting me to try out the Beta version of their Intelligent Octopus Go tariff with the link to the Hyundai Ioniq 5. After several failed attempts to switch my Octopus Go tariff over I received an email yesterday telling me that their software has a fault which means they can’t communicate with Hyundai so they are having to rewrite it and will let me know when it is ready. Whilst a bit disappointing at least they hit in touch to let me know what is happening.

[Trevor Crook]

17 hours ago, Frank Skilbeck said:

No but even if 100% powered by combined cycle gas power generation they use less fossil fuel than an IC car, due the quite poor efficiency of an IC engine compared to the much higher efficiency of an electric motor.

Indeed. 1l of fuel contains around 10kWh of energy. My daughter's diesel SUV does around 45mpg, which equates to about 1 mile/kWh. Her husband's larger, faster Tesla Model Y does 3.5 - 4 miles/kWh (depending on the season) so even if all the electrons came from fossil fuels it would "burn" far less. In fact, during the last year only 36% of the UK's electricity came from fossil fuels. 

[Trevor Crook]

3 hours ago, Learner said:

Maybe not if theres a rush to buy an ev hummer at just over 4 tons and maybe a new HEV license too.

A snip at £180k.

 80000 pre orders in America although its cheaper over there.

Battery alone is heavier than my car!!

 That's an extreme example! First comparison example I looked up (sourced from kerb weights given by Honest John) : BMW X3 - 2 tonnes; BMW iX3 (electric version) - 2.2 tonnes, so a 10% increase. I think a Tesla Model 3 weighs about 100kg more than a BMW 3 series, version dependent of course.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Trevor Crook
Correction

[Tim Kearsley]

57 minutes ago, Ron Gray said:

I received an email from Octopus a week or so back inviting me to try out the Beta version of their Intelligent Octopus Go tariff with the link to the Hyundai Ioniq 5. After several failed attempts to switch my Octopus Go tariff over I received an email yesterday telling me that their software has a fault which means they can’t communicate with Hyundai so they are having to rewrite it and will let me know when it is ready. Whilst a bit disappointing at least they hit in touch to let me know what is happening.

I've been thinking about going on to IO Go as well Ron.  It works with the Tesla Model 3.  I regularly look at the Tesla Motors Club forum and it all seems a bit "buggy from the posts appearing on there.  For me, at the moment, the ordinary Octopus Go is sufficient.  The four hour window from 0030 to 0430 adds about 40% charge to the car (from a 7kW charger) at 9.5p per kWh.  My Pod Point charger allows me to schedule the charge to fit in that window.  IO would give me an extra two hours at 9.5p but at what extra complexity?  Everyone's situation is different of course.

[Frank Skilbeck]

2 hours ago, Erfolg said:

I am really surprised how only the motor efficiency is considered, nearly always quoting max efficiency. No consideration of the switching losses. Total gross life time costs, be it energy or money should be considered, not just an element.

 

There have been recently some articles based on research that cast doubts on durability of batteries, compared to blanket claims.

 

With respect to both solar panels and wind turbines, there have been quite a few articles with respect to the various aspects. Invariably much is about returns and equipment life and the requirement for subsidy to get the investment, particularly off shore.

 

If you want to believe that it can all be had at no cost, what can I possibly say or even point at, it must all be untrue to a believer.

Yep and fossil fuels should also consider the energy expended in finding, producing, transporting, processing and distribution too, not just the tail pipe emissions of the actual engine efficiency. Here's an article from the Journal of Petroleum Technology highlighting the ever expanding energy required to produce liquid fuels. As the fuel is essential free, the oil companies only pay tax on what they send to market so any consumed on site is essentially tax free (just lost export) and it's usually the gas that is used and on a lot of production facilities there is no means of exporting the gas, so using it for fuel means there is less to reinject. The last offshore project I worked on, max production less than 30,000 barrels per day (1 barrel = 35 gals) had an electrical power consumption which varied from 4-8 MW depending on the production phase and a 30 MW heating system, on top of that there is the energy to transport it to market (from Nigeria), refine it and then distribute it.

 

BTW oil production facilities have a limited life also and costs for decommissioning it aren't cheap

[Ron Gray]

 @Tim KearsleyI too use that 4 hour window to charge (it's now 9p per kWh) but I'm also charging my solar batteries and running the solar assisted heat pump (water) so I can't quite do everything (although the Ioniq 5 only needs a top up every now and then). But with IOGo the extra 2 hours at the 7.5p per kWh is attractive!

Edited October 18, 2023 by Ron Gray

[Frank Skilbeck]

1 hour ago, Tim Kearsley said:

I've been thinking about going on to IO Go as well Ron.  It works with the Tesla Model 3.  I regularly look at the Tesla Motors Club forum and it all seems a bit "buggy from the posts appearing on there.  For me, at the moment, the ordinary Octopus Go is sufficient.  The four hour window from 0030 to 0430 adds about 40% charge to the car (from a 7kW charger) at 9.5p per kWh.  My Pod Point charger allows me to schedule the charge to fit in that window.  IO would give me an extra two hours at 9.5p but at what extra complexity?  Everyone's situation is different of course.

No IO could give you more, the overnight window is sort of the minimum, you just plug it in and tell how much you want by when. For example we have our Mini set for 80% by 8am, just plugged it in tonight and IO has scheduled the charge from 5pm to 7:30pm (it's only a little battery), you get a notification on your phone, but it means that during that period all you electricity is at that rate, so we always time plugging in before we cook dinner (every little helps....). Only works with certain cars and wall boxes, although our Mini is OI Go compatible we use our Ohme wallbox to interface with IO and the car interfaces with the Ohme (tells it what charge it has). It's not actually the car doing this but the phone app, so if you don't have a compatible wallbox then your car app would interface with the IO app, in that case setting a schedule on your wall box may override the allocated charging periods defined by Octopus. It all sounds a bit complicated but it isn't, literally takes seconds to set up and then you just plug in and away it goes and does it's thing.

 

I think it's a contractual condition that you let IO (now IO Go) control the charging as they are scheduling the charging to balance the grid.

 

Here's the screen shot of our current charging (ignore the miles this is based on Mini pessimistic Guess O Meter, it will actually be good for around 100 miles on 80%)

 

[IDD15]

Citroen have just announced the new E C3 at quite an attractive price point for an EV.

 

Auto Express Citroen EC 3 review

 

It will use an LFP battery pack and even has proper controls for heating etc. Things could get quite interesting early in 2024 as the Dacia Spring is also due on the UK market about then. 
 

Cheers

idd

 

 

 

[IDD15]

12 hours ago, Ron Gray said:

Whilst personal charges do cost iro £1K, public chargers are somewhat more expensive. I’ve seen public car parks where the local authorities have installed chargers in some of the bays, I think this is a good approach. From what I’ve seen, supermarkets aren’t making a big effort, but in other areas it maybe different. 

I was thinking in terms of these kind of posts which I have seen out in the wild in a few places.

CEF Basic Charging post

 

It’s likely posts installed by a management company such as BeV might be a little more expensive as they’d need a comms card for relaying energy supplied  back for billing to the customer. But given the number they install I’m sure there will be economies of scale involved. Certainly you could get a lot of these devices for the cost of one high power rapid charger and spread the EV love a lot further! 😃

 

cheers 

idd

 

 

[Ron Gray]

Not seen any of those out my way in the wilds of Norfolk! But have seen some other 7kW ones at our local nature reserve (bit pricy though).

Edited October 18, 2023 by Ron Gray

[Ron Gray]

Octopus have sorted out the issues with connecting to my Ioniq 5 and IOGo is now up and running. Just got to wait and see how it deals with charging the EV and my solar batteries.

[Tim Kearsley]

51 minutes ago, Ron Gray said:

Octopus have sorted out the issues with connecting to my Ioniq 5 and IOGo is now up and running. Just got to wait and see how it deals with charging the EV and my solar batteries.

I'd be very interested to hear how you get on Ron as I'm thinking of going the same way. 

[Ron Gray]

I don’t think that it will be any different to Go, in that when the EV is charging it will use electric from anywhere in my system, so not only grid but the the solar batteries too because it will use the boost setting. However, if both the solar batteries and the EV are being charged at the same time then it will only draw from the grid possibly at a lower rate but as the low rate charging window is longer with IOGo and my total allowable EV charge is set to 80% then it should be OK, tomorrow will tell. 
 

Interestingly enough, after I set up the account it gave me 2 charging schedules, today 11:30am - 12:00 pm and tonight 11:00pm - 06:00am, I’m not sure if those schedules remain in place or are variable.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Ron, the idea is you plug in and OI determines the best times to charge to meet your target, sometimes you might be given multiple slots to meet your target.

[MattyB]

On 18/10/2023 at 15:16, Ron Gray said:

Would you mind please sharing them?

 

Which ones are you referring to?

 

Erf nerver posts any sources; it's far easier to just recount the FUD from a half remembered article that may or may not have any actual research or validated data behind it, then say "see, this or that has not been considered / has been overlooked".

[Gary Manuel]

I have the same setup with my EV. Ohme Pro wall box, which allows Intelligent Octopus Go integration. IOG is leading the other generator's tarriffs in that it is using the surplus energy at Octopus's convenience to help balance the grid. Since the beginning of October, I have been getting immediate cheap EV charging during the day, whenever I plug in. House load / solar battery charging then also becomes cheap during the EV charging slots.

I have setup my Inverter Battery to automatically detect when an Intelligent charging slot is in operation and charge the house batteries at the same time. It is working brilliantly. Last month I paid 1.26% at full rate (29.56p), 58.61% at 7.5p and 40.13% free from solar. Savings over standard variable rate was £255. The free rate was above 80% in the summer. I got the EV purely for commercial reasons as it gave access to this great electricity tariff. PS. I also get paid 15p per kWh for export.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Gary Manuel

[Tim Kearsley]

Crikey, you've done well Gary!  I was told I couldn't have the 15p export rate as it wasn't available to Go users.  So I'm getting my export through Scottish Power at 12p/kWh.

[Gary Manuel]

1 hour ago, Tim Kearsley said:

Crikey, you've done well Gary!  I was told I couldn't have the 15p export rate as it wasn't available to Go users.  So I'm getting my export through Scottish Power at 12p/kWh.

It's not available to "Go!" users but it is available to "Intelligent Octopus Go" users as payback for handing control of the additional EV charging slots over to Octopus.

Edit. You do need a compatible car or compatible charger that can be controlled by them, to be able to get on "Intelligent Octopus Go"

Edited October 23, 2023 by Gary Manuel

[Tim Kearsley]

4 minutes ago, Gary Manuel said:

It's not available to "Go!" users but it is available to "Intelligent Octopus Go" users as payback for handing control of the additional EV charging slots over to Octopus.

Edit. You do need a compatible car or compatible charger that can be controlled by them, to be able to get on "Intelligent Octopus Go"

Ah, OK, I didn't know that.  Another reason to go "intelligent"!  I've got a Tesla Model 3 which is compatible with their API, so no problem there. 

[Ron Gray]

1 hour ago, Gary Manuel said:

I have setup my Inverter Battery to automatically detect when an Intelligent charging slot is in operation

How have you done that Gary?

[Ron Gray]

2 hours ago, Frank Skilbeck said:

Ron, the idea is you plug in and OI determines the best times to charge to meet your target, sometimes you might be given multiple slots to meet your target.

The app tells me when the slot (s) is

 

[Gary Manuel]

1 hour ago, Ron Gray said:

How have you done that Gary?

Using Home Assistant and GivTCP addon, which facilitates automated local control of my two GivEnergy inverters.

[Ron Gray]

Ah, HA, my HA Green is in order!

[Gary Manuel]

1 minute ago, Ron Gray said:

Ah, HA, my HA Green is in order!

Best thing since sliced bread. I'm just using an old redundant laptop I had doing nothing.

[Ron Gray]

My son has it setup in his house and has been pushing me to get it. I think he has his whole house integrated into HA, which is quite impressive. I was going to set it up on a Raspberry Pi I currently in use as my network controller and Adguard host but liked the idea of the Green so pre ordered one, should be here next month.