Intelligent Octopus - VW Availability

[Utumno]

Octopus have just pushed an update to their iOS app that extends the Intelligent Octopus (https://octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/) tariff to more car brands, including specifically Volkswagen.

This from the app, right now :

I have no idea whether the ID is specifically supported, but I'm hopeful it might given Ohme have access to an ID API. Switching to Intelligent Octopus gives you :

* 7.5p/kWh charging between 2330 and 0530 (6 hours) for the whole house - this is two hours longer than Go currently allows and is an absolute no-brainer if you have home batteries or electric storage heaters
* 7.5p/kWh of charging your supported EV overnight at times Octopus decide (you set a SoC required and a "ready-by" time, and Octopus remotely charges your vehicle for you at a guaranteed 7.5p/kWh even if that's outside the 6 hour window above)

Switching tariff is done entirely through the iOS app

Full disclosure; we switched my Dad to this tariff two weeks ago from Octopus Go (he's got a Model 3) and it's worked flawlessly - including charging to his desired vehicle percentage well outside the standard 6 hour window; it's not been unusual to see Octopus-initiated charging starting at around 9pm during this period and that usage has all been tagged correctly at 7.5p/kWh. He's got a 20kWh battery that he can now charge to very nearly full with 7.5p/kWh energy, and therefore Intelligent Octopus is now saving him a bit over £50 a month in electricity bills. To be very clear, I don't work for Octopus, I'm merely a happy customer; my Dad's the same.

If Intelligent Octopus now works for ID owners, it may well be a cost-effective way to charge longer for cheaper, reduce house electricity costs a little (or quite a lot, if you have a home battery setup), and protect risk-free against flexible tariff rises in the Autumn (it's a 12 month 'fix' with no exit penalty). On top of this, it's probably an excellent way to workaround the broken in-car charging as well

If anyone is brave enough to sign up to this with an ID.3 I'd love to know how you get on.

[sidehaas]

Interesting - I just googled and at the moment they are still just taking Tesla customers but presumably this will change soon.
A question - if they decide to charge your Dad's car during the day rather than in the 2330-0530 period (let's pretend it charges between 2000 and 2200) does he just get his car's electric for 7.5p, or does all his electric used 2000-2200 only cost him 7.5p? I had assumed the former, but something it says on the website seems to imply the latter.
Is there a commitment to have his car plugged in all the time?

[Utumno]

Interesting - I just googled and at the moment they are still just taking Tesla customers but presumably this will change soon.

Their website hasn’t been updated yet, but the signup flow in-app includes those manufacturers. So I think it just needs a website update to match the reality.

A question - if they decide to charge your Dad's car during the day rather than in the 2330-0530 period (let's pretend it charges between 2000 and 2200) does he just get his car's electric for 7.5p, or does all his electric used 2000-2200 only cost him 7.5p? I had assumed the former, but something it says on the website seems to imply the latter.

I wondered the same thing. From Dad’s experience it’s just the car’s kWh at 7.5p/kWh outside the timed 6 hour window not the whole house.

Is there a commitment to have his car plugged in all the time?

Not at all. If you plug the vehicle in anytime after 5pm then Octopus works out an overnight charging schedule and displays it in the Octopus app (it charges in 30 minute windows.

Note that Octopus can, and does, break up charging into those windows so you might well have a few 30 minute charge periods overnight interspersed with quiet periods. I asked about this and it’s because Octopus optimise the generated schedule around relative carbon intensities and usage patterns in 30 minute increments - the idea is that you’re drawing down the “greenest” possible energy and being kind to the grid at the same time. They also claimed to take your own personal energy usage profile into account as well, though I don’t have any evidence of this after only a couple of weeks running it.

If you unplug it just doesn’t charge, no complaints from Octopus. If the car isn’t plugged in then Octopus just doesn’t create a schedule!

And if you plug in well after 5pm then Octopus works out the best way to get as near to your requested charge state. As an example Dad plugged in at 10pm one evening and Octopus had calculated and told the car to start an “Intelligent Octopus” charge to 80% within 5 minutes without him lifting a finger in an app. It was super impressive and basically means he sets two parameters in an app (charge % and “ready-by” time) and just plugs in when he wants an overnight charge. If he doesn’t want a charge for any reason, he just doesn’t plug the car in It’s a doddle and guarantees 7.5p/kWh going into the car.

Finally in the case of Tesla the Octopus charging schedule doesn’t override the in-car maximum charge so you could happily set the car to 80% and Octopus to 95% and the car wouldn’t exceed 80% anyway.

The Tesla integration seems smart enough to recognise when you’re at “home” and doesn’t interfere at all with public charging (Dad does Kidderminster <> Grantham at least once a week so regularly uses public charging)

Im suspicious because nothing like this ever “just works” in my experience. However in this case everything does indeed seem to “just work” and the setup hasn’t let Dad down once - unlike his previous manual scheduling which often meant he was having to charge at peak rate.

[sidehaas]

Thanks, good info. I'll watch with interest for when this goes live. Although I think the benefits will be more for people with batteries or/and storage heaters so I'll probably see how others get on before switching from Go. If you have those things it seems a great deal to get 2 hours more at a cheap rate.

[Utumno]

Thanks, good info. I'll watch with interest for when this goes live. Although I think the benefits will be more for people with batteries or/and storage heaters so I'll probably see how others get on before switching from Go. If you have those things it seems a great deal to get 2 hours more at a cheap rate.

I think it'll suit higher-mileage EV users as well, given it pretty much guarantees a full battery in the morning at 7.5p/kWh. That and the hard of thinking (like my Dad) who find fiddling with apps each day to get a charge in an unreliable faff

[G43FAN]

I wonder if the VW faulty charger detection will rear it's unwanted head. Unless updates have removed it, the car will see repeated stop start charging in a single plugged in session as a faulty charger and lock itself out?

[OB1CCFC]

Ive had 2 smart meter failures on Octopus Go in less than a year, 4 months outage and counting. They put you on their expensive ‘standard’ tariff while it’s resolved.
That’s what’s known as a ‘perverse contract’.

[smyth1492]

Has anyone got further feedback on this tarriff, I am being offered this within the Octopus app. I'm coming very close to the end of my 2 year fix at 15p/kwh so looking at the options.

[Turquoise]

Is this available for ID3s? I get stuck in a loop trying to select the car...

EDIT: Just noticed the * by VW, which is *VW ID models are currently excluded.

[MotMot]

Yup - I think the iD3/4/5 etc.. API(?) is not as easy to work with as the one for the previous VW EV's...

[Sdeel7491]

Hi I’m With Octopus on Go which works well I would be interested in changing to intelligent but i have an EO Mini charger and I don’t think this is compatible yet I would give it a go if I could,my tariff comes to an end 24TH August at the minute I’m paying 5p/15p.

[VengefulSeal]

I noticed this available in the app the other day - there is an option to suggest a car at the bottom of the list. I added my ID.3 - maybe if more people suggest them it will rise up the list of wanted vehicles and get added quicker? Can't hurt for more people to add it.

[ItshardtobuyId3]

Stay well away for now. ID.3 scheduling is knackered by all accounts and although Ohme is apparently supported it will be a world of pain if you own an ID.3.

The ID3 hates being plugged into a charger and not being charged. There are work arounds but I’d not go near intelligent octopus with a barge pole until until someone fixes it. Unless you don’t mind having half the charge you need 70% of the time.

[Turquoise]

Stay well away for now. ID.3 scheduling is knackered by all accounts and although Ohme is apparently supported it will be a world of pain if you own an ID.3.

The ID3 hates being plugged into a charger and not being charged. There are work arounds but I’d not go near intelligent octopus with a barge pole until until someone fixes it. Unless you don’t mind having half the charge you need 70% of the time.

Sounds like it works fine with 3.0 software so probably depends on how long you've had the car for. (Although currently a moot point anyway with VW not accepting id3s.)

[sidehaas]

Stay well away for now. ID.3 scheduling is knackered by all accounts and although Ohme is apparently supported it will be a world of pain if you own an ID.3.

The ID3 hates being plugged into a charger and not being charged. There are work arounds but I’d not go near intelligent octopus with a barge pole until until someone fixes it. Unless you don’t mind having half the charge you need 70% of the time.

Sounds like it works fine with 3.0 software so probably depends on how long you've had the car for. (Although currently a moot point anyway with VW not accepting id3s.)

I would be a little cautious about that before we've seen more experience with 3.0 cars, but I hope you're right.
There are issues with the car's own scheduling which are hopefully resolved by 3.0 and the only evidence I've seen people report so far was positive. However the issues referred to above are a different problem with the interface between car and charger that sometimes occurs. It's not clear this is even a fault with the car, it might well just be a problem how the charger interfaces with the car (specifically what signals it decides to send down the cable when pausing and restarting a charge) and what the car is programmed to do when it receives those signals. I have had the same issues with Ohme Home Pro interfaces as the poster above and they were resolved by Ohme making a remote change to the charger profile. However the default remains the option that doesn't work properly. I've seen similar symptoms reported with some other chargers but don't know if they found a resolution. It's quite a complex topic.

[gailjon]

Crikey, VW adverts have changed a lot!

[Turquoise]

Stay well away for now. ID.3 scheduling is knackered by all accounts and although Ohme is apparently supported it will be a world of pain if you own an ID.3.

The ID3 hates being plugged into a charger and not being charged. There are work arounds but I’d not go near intelligent octopus with a barge pole until until someone fixes it. Unless you don’t mind having half the charge you need 70% of the time.

Sounds like it works fine with 3.0 software so probably depends on how long you've had the car for. (Although currently a moot point anyway with VW not accepting id3s.)

I would be a little cautious about that before we've seen more experience with 3.0 cars, but I hope you're right.
There are issues with the car's own scheduling which are hopefully resolved by 3.0 and the only evidence I've seen people report so far was positive. However the issues referred to above are a different problem with the interface between car and charger that sometimes occurs. It's not clear this is even a fault with the car, it might well just be a problem how the charger interfaces with the car (specifically what signals it decides to send down the cable when pausing and restarting a charge) and what the car is programmed to do when it receives those signals. I have had the same issues with Ohme Home Pro interfaces as the poster above and they were resolved by Ohme making a remote change to the charger profile. However the default remains the option that doesn't work properly. I've seen similar symptoms reported with some other chargers but don't know if they found a resolution. It's quite a complex topic.

Couldn't remember where I'd seen this was fixed, and it's just one report on the Facebook group , but seems hopeful...

[Navigator]

I'm interested in this too and enquired about 3 weeks ago. I've just checked the Octopus website again and seen the small print:

*VW ID models are currently excluded

But I hope it comes soon - along with Wallbox compatibility.