Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Sunny]

Good job I had my push iron in the back, I cycled to the fuel station and bought a 5l can of diesel.

I haven't heard that turn of phrase for YEARS

[ZRX61]

Waymo in the news again...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/waymo-driverl ... 2Jc8vngaiA


oops...

[Horse]

Waymo in the news again...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/waymo-driverl ... 2Jc8vngaiA


oops...

Bit of a non-story:

The Waymo taxi came across a street blocked by police vehicles early Friday before turning into an area that was not blocked off where other vehicles were also traveling

Officers had not yet blocked off traffic when the Waymo vehicle drove through but did so afterward, the LAPD said.

[ZRX61]

I thought the video was amusing...

[Mussels]

The video shows Waymo left a lot out of it's description.

The Waymo taxi came across a street blocked by police vehicles early Friday before turning into an area that was not blocked off where other vehicles were also traveling

The taxi stopped right next to someone on the ground who had a couple of dozen trigger happy guns pointed in his general direction. Any person would need to be pretty blind to get into that situation.

[Taipan]

I thought the video was amusing...

Good job it didn't run the perp over!

[Taipan]

Took my Cupra up north at the weekend to experiment with a longer drive (it's 220 miles door-to-door).
Also to try using the charger network, as I'd only ever charged at home.

On the way up, it was fine - stopped for a charge en route, as I was going to be about 25 miles short.

Topped up when up there at another charger round the corner from the Fil's no bother.

Was going to be about 60 miles short on the way home (got about 2.6m/kWh, compared to my usual commuter run of 3.8m/kWh) and had planned to stop and charge at Woodall (our service station of choice when heading up for some reason).

Arrived at Woodall, tried eight different chargers, including two different makes. All of them connected, but then the car wouldn't charge.

I'd only got 25 miles charge left so looked to see what else was around on ARBP (good app - I recommend it) and found an Instavolt (I'd used an Instavolt the day prior with no issues) at a McDonald's a couple of miles away off the motorway, so headed there. No joy. Same issues.

We were right by Chesterfield, I had visions of spending the night on KFB's floor

It's a lease car, and came with breakdown, so I rang them and went and got a dirty McDonald's while waiting.

50 minutes later, AA chap turns up, I explain the issue, he says words to the effect of if there's no error message there's nowt he can do. I then went to demonstrate the issue and the fucking thing started charging.

AA man says that happens a lot in his experience. Despite having done the 'turn it off and on again' thing before with no joy, by leaving it off for longer while we waited for him to show, it had sorted itself out.

Given that was only the third time I'd tried to charge in the wild, I was severely unimpressed. The whole escapade added two hours onto our journey, and we weren't in a rush, but if I had been, it'd have been a frigging nightmare.

The Cupra is being relegated back to commuter duty and home charging, which tbf was always the plan.

Home charging is usually fine, though it's not charged a couple of times which I put down to the app, but am now wondering if it's got a bit of a general glitch.

Anyway, idle thoughts about replacing the 'main' car with an EV are shelved for the time being.
A longer range car was the thinking tbf, so maybe once the pain of that journey has subsided we'll reconsider.

Has it been okay since?

[Dodgy69]

I reckon getting the commuting traffic on board with home/work charging would always of made most sense.

[MrLongbeard]

I reckon getting the commuting traffic on board with home/work charging would always of made most sense.

If offered.
My place does the salary sacrifice thing for EV's, but had no charging points at the last lab I worked at and only 1 at the lab I'm supposed to work at now.

I reckon it won't be long until all of the free electricity supplied to charge EV's at work will need to be paid for by the working stiff plugging in.

[KungFooBob]

I reckon getting the commuting traffic on board with home/work charging would always of made most sense.

If offered.
My place does the salary sacrifice thing for EV's, but had no charging points at the last lab I worked at and only 1 at the lab I'm supposed to work at now.

I reckon it won't be long until all of the free electricity supplied to charge EV's at work will need to be paid for by the working stiff plugging in.

We've got a big warehouse with solar panels on the roof, if the cars didn't use it then we'd be selling it back to the grid. I guess most businesses with a large roof area could do the same pretty easy. I think a grant paid a large percentage of the cost of the panels.

[Sunny]

Took my Cupra up north at the weekend to experiment with a longer drive (it's 220 miles door-to-door).
Also to try using the charger network, as I'd only ever charged at home.

On the way up, it was fine - stopped for a charge en route, as I was going to be about 25 miles short.

Topped up when up there at another charger round the corner from the Fil's no bother.

Was going to be about 60 miles short on the way home (got about 2.6m/kWh, compared to my usual commuter run of 3.8m/kWh) and had planned to stop and charge at Woodall (our service station of choice when heading up for some reason).

Arrived at Woodall, tried eight different chargers, including two different makes. All of them connected, but then the car wouldn't charge.

I'd only got 25 miles charge left so looked to see what else was around on ARBP (good app - I recommend it) and found an Instavolt (I'd used an Instavolt the day prior with no issues) at a McDonald's a couple of miles away off the motorway, so headed there. No joy. Same issues.

We were right by Chesterfield, I had visions of spending the night on KFB's floor

It's a lease car, and came with breakdown, so I rang them and went and got a dirty McDonald's while waiting.

50 minutes later, AA chap turns up, I explain the issue, he says words to the effect of if there's no error message there's nowt he can do. I then went to demonstrate the issue and the fucking thing started charging.

AA man says that happens a lot in his experience. Despite having done the 'turn it off and on again' thing before with no joy, by leaving it off for longer while we waited for him to show, it had sorted itself out.

Given that was only the third time I'd tried to charge in the wild, I was severely unimpressed. The whole escapade added two hours onto our journey, and we weren't in a rush, but if I had been, it'd have been a frigging nightmare.

The Cupra is being relegated back to commuter duty and home charging, which tbf was always the plan.

Home charging is usually fine, though it's not charged a couple of times which I put down to the app, but am now wondering if it's got a bit of a general glitch.

Anyway, idle thoughts about replacing the 'main' car with an EV are shelved for the time being.
A longer range car was the thinking tbf, so maybe once the pain of that journey has subsided we'll reconsider.

Has it been okay since?

Mostly. It's glitched and not charged overnight at home a couple of times since though.
I've been meaning to unpair it from Octopus and the charger and re-pair it to see if that sorts it.

[Taipan]

Took my Cupra up north at the weekend to experiment with a longer drive (it's 220 miles door-to-door).
Also to try using the charger network, as I'd only ever charged at home.

On the way up, it was fine - stopped for a charge en route, as I was going to be about 25 miles short.

Topped up when up there at another charger round the corner from the Fil's no bother.

Was going to be about 60 miles short on the way home (got about 2.6m/kWh, compared to my usual commuter run of 3.8m/kWh) and had planned to stop and charge at Woodall (our service station of choice when heading up for some reason).

Arrived at Woodall, tried eight different chargers, including two different makes. All of them connected, but then the car wouldn't charge.

I'd only got 25 miles charge left so looked to see what else was around on ARBP (good app - I recommend it) and found an Instavolt (I'd used an Instavolt the day prior with no issues) at a McDonald's a couple of miles away off the motorway, so headed there. No joy. Same issues.

We were right by Chesterfield, I had visions of spending the night on KFB's floor

It's a lease car, and came with breakdown, so I rang them and went and got a dirty McDonald's while waiting.

50 minutes later, AA chap turns up, I explain the issue, he says words to the effect of if there's no error message there's nowt he can do. I then went to demonstrate the issue and the fucking thing started charging.

AA man says that happens a lot in his experience. Despite having done the 'turn it off and on again' thing before with no joy, by leaving it off for longer while we waited for him to show, it had sorted itself out.

Given that was only the third time I'd tried to charge in the wild, I was severely unimpressed. The whole escapade added two hours onto our journey, and we weren't in a rush, but if I had been, it'd have been a frigging nightmare.

The Cupra is being relegated back to commuter duty and home charging, which tbf was always the plan.

Home charging is usually fine, though it's not charged a couple of times which I put down to the app, but am now wondering if it's got a bit of a general glitch.

Anyway, idle thoughts about replacing the 'main' car with an EV are shelved for the time being.
A longer range car was the thinking tbf, so maybe once the pain of that journey has subsided we'll reconsider.

Has it been okay since?

Mostly. It's glitched and not charged overnight at home a couple of times since though.
I've been meaning to unpair it from Octopus and the charger and re-pair it to see if that sorts it.

Quite a few Tesla owners have had that issue. In their case it seems to be when the car has apreviously had a schedule set it interferes with Octopus taking over? something like that anyway...

[Sunny]

Has it been okay since?

Mostly. It's glitched and not charged overnight at home a couple of times since though.
I've been meaning to unpair it from Octopus and the charger and re-pair it to see if that sorts it.

Quite a few Tesla owners have had that issue. In their case it seems to be when the car has apreviously had a schedule set it interferes with Octopus taking over? something like that anyway...

When I first got it, it errored a few times connecting from the Octopus app to the charger (despite the internets saying that was the better option than from Octopus to the car), so I connected it direct to the car instead and it was fine ever since, until that day on the motorway. (I've never set a schedule for it on the car app.)

Too many variables is the annoyance I find with home charging - between the Octopus app, Ohme app, and Cupra app, I wake up to a bunch of 'couldn't connect', 'couldn't charge', 'charged successfully' notifications every time.
It's really fucking annoying - I have to open the car app to find out if it charged or not, as the conflicting messages give me zero clue

[Taipan]

Mostly. It's glitched and not charged overnight at home a couple of times since though.
I've been meaning to unpair it from Octopus and the charger and re-pair it to see if that sorts it.

Quite a few Tesla owners have had that issue. In their case it seems to be when the car has apreviously had a schedule set it interferes with Octopus taking over? something like that anyway...

When I first got it, it errored a few times connecting from the Octopus app to the charger (despite the internets saying that was the better option than from Octopus to the car), so I connected it direct to the car instead and it was fine ever since, until that day on the motorway. (I've never set a schedule for it on the car app.)

Too many variables is the annoyance I find with home charging - between the Octopus app, Ohme app, and Cupra app, I wake up to a bunch of 'couldn't connect', 'couldn't charge', 'charged successfully' notifications every time.
It's really fucking annoying - I have to open the car app to find out if it charged or not, as the conflicting messages give me zero clue

My Tesla does that and I think it's because when you plug the in, the car automatically starts charging until Octopus takes over, but as the Tesla is already charging itself, Octopus initially throws that message up? However, Octopus has always managed to take it over and it has always charged.

[Nordboy]

Mostly. It's glitched and not charged overnight at home a couple of times since though.
I've been meaning to unpair it from Octopus and the charger and re-pair it to see if that sorts it.

Quite a few Tesla owners have had that issue. In their case it seems to be when the car has apreviously had a schedule set it interferes with Octopus taking over? something like that anyway...

When I first got it, it errored a few times connecting from the Octopus app to the charger (despite the internets saying that was the better option than from Octopus to the car), so I connected it direct to the car instead and it was fine ever since, until that day on the motorway. (I've never set a schedule for it on the car app.)

Too many variables is the annoyance I find with home charging - between the Octopus app, Ohme app, and Cupra app, I wake up to a bunch of 'couldn't connect', 'couldn't charge', 'charged successfully' notifications every time.
It's really fucking annoying - I have to open the car app to find out if it charged or not, as the conflicting messages give me zero clue

I think it's an issue with quite a few cars. My Ford Explorer sometimes hasn't put in the amount of charge I wanted it to. The problem I see is that every app wants to be sync'd with the other. I sync'd my car with the ohme app and charging through ohme was no issue at all, apart from me manually having to tell it how much % charge I wanted. But mo major issue. Then Octopus stuck it's nose in and told me that it would take me off the Intelligent go tariff if I didn't connect the car to the Octopus app. This is where I now have a few of the issues. i still chrage through the Ohme app as that seems to be pretty reliable for me. As soon as I try something different or one of the other apps tries to get involved with schedules etc, it all seems to glitch.
Undoubtedly I'm not getting the best from the whole system, which regards to intelligent charging, but as long as it keeps a good charge in the car and I minimise the glitches then I'm happy enough.

The Ford EV app is really bad though, I can really only use it to see how much charge/ range i have left in the car. I don't drive it a lot though as the wife has now officially adopted the car as her own. Even though she didn't want an EV so kept her Mercedes e class cab. Which has sat on the drive and not moved since we got the Explorer.

[Taipan]

Guess it was always going to happen. Set a target it couldn't achieve and it would offer cheap rate outside of the set hours and people abused that. Ho hum...

Hi Taipan, rider of the mighty Africa Twin,

Thanks for choosing Intelligent Octopus Go to power your home and charge your car.

Since we launched Octopus Go over 7 years ago, we’ve invested millions in unlocking the power of smart electricity, and passing on savings to customers like you who are literally driving the clean energy transition forward.

Intelligent Octopus Go has always offered super-cheap power for your whole home every night and smart charging to let you charge cleaner for less.

To keep our off-peak rates as low as possible, by the end of January we will be updating Intelligent Octopus Go to automatically apply the 6 hour limit for super-cheap smart-charging.

Around 80% of Intelligent Octopus Go charging sessions are already using less than the 6 hours mentioned in our terms – which is good, because scheduling more inevitably drives up the cost as we're charging when wholesale costs and grid stress are higher.


The fundamental benefits of Intelligent Octopus Go remain the same:

Intelligent Octopus Go customers will continue to receive 6 hours of off-peak electricity for your whole home between 11:30pm and 5:30am. Guaranteed, reliable, schedule-friendly off-peak savings.

Plus up to 6 hours of super-cheap smart charging every 24 hours – these may be during your home’s off-peak hours (11:30pm - 05:30am), outside those times, or a mix of both.

Whenever the 6 hours smart charging is scheduled outside your off-peak window, the electricity for your whole home will also be at the discounted rates.

If we need to schedule more than 6 hours to reach your target charge, only the first 6 hours of charging will be at the discounted rate – extra half-hours will be charged at your Bump rate (even if they’re scheduled during the off-peak window).

Plugging in your vehicle daily (when possible) makes Intelligent Octopus Go cheaper and reduces the amount of smart-charging hours you need overnight.

Tens of thousands of Intelligent Octopus Go customers are already plugging in daily. But all Intelligent Octopus Go customers benefit from more cars being available to the grid more of the time – so if you can, please do.

If you want to read more about this change head over to our blog.

Thanks again for trusting us to power your wheels – and for helping to harness the power of abundant clean energy to lower bills and create a fairer energy system.

Love and power,

Pete Miller
Co-founder & Head of Customer Experience

PS. I’d appreciate your views and ideas on this email, Octopus, driving, and charging. I’ve made a short survey here that should only take a few minutes to complete and, by way of a thank you, three random entries will win a £512 credit to their Octopus account.


PPS. Remember as an Octopus EV driver, you get extra perks:

Intelligent Octopus Go customers get 8% off public charging with Electroverse (it’s free to join!)

Freebies and other benefits with our Octoplus rewards programme.

[ZRX61]

It's happened again... (Waymo)

[wheelnut]

Quite a few Tesla owners have had that issue. In their case it seems to be when the car has apreviously had a schedule set it interferes with Octopus taking over? something like that anyway...

When I first got it, it errored a few times connecting from the Octopus app to the charger (despite the internets saying that was the better option than from Octopus to the car), so I connected it direct to the car instead and it was fine ever since, until that day on the motorway. (I've never set a schedule for it on the car app.)

Too many variables is the annoyance I find with home charging - between the Octopus app, Ohme app, and Cupra app, I wake up to a bunch of 'couldn't connect', 'couldn't charge', 'charged successfully' notifications every time.
It's really fucking annoying - I have to open the car app to find out if it charged or not, as the conflicting messages give me zero clue

I think it's an issue with quite a few cars. My Ford Explorer sometimes hasn't put in the amount of charge I wanted it to. The problem I see is that every app wants to be sync'd with the other. I sync'd my car with the ohme app and charging through ohme was no issue at all, apart from me manually having to tell it how much % charge I wanted. But mo major issue. Then Octopus stuck it's nose in and told me that it would take me off the Intelligent go tariff if I didn't connect the car to the Octopus app. This is where I now have a few of the issues. i still chrage through the Ohme app as that seems to be pretty reliable for me. As soon as I try something different or one of the other apps tries to get involved with schedules etc, it all seems to glitch.
Undoubtedly I'm not getting the best from the whole system, which regards to intelligent charging, but as long as it keeps a good charge in the car and I minimise the glitches then I'm happy enough.

The Ford EV app is really bad though, I can really only use it to see how much charge/ range i have left in the car. I don't drive it a lot though as the wife has now officially adopted the car as her own. Even though she didn't want an EV so kept her Mercedes e class cab. Which has sat on the drive and not moved since we got the Explorer.

I’ve got an explorer, octopus and the ohme charger. I’m slightly different as I don’t have the intelligent tariff, I have the fixed tariff with 8p between 12,30 and 5.30am. TBH, it’s been great. I’ve had it just over a year and it hasn’t failed to charge yet.

I went down that route as it seemed more predictable at the time and the intelligent tariff seemed a little confusing as to when it would and wouldn’t charge.

I agree on the ford app, I just use it for preheating the car. Although that said I don’t really use ohme or octopus apps, I just plug the car in.

[ZRX61]

They're planning to use these school buses during the Olympics...


https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news ... gJ8BBwzqbg

[Slenver]

We have Ohme and Octopus Agile and tbh have no problems. Never used the Audi side of it at all, just had to ensure the car and Octopus are both connected to the Ohme app so it can manage everything.

Set it to a time and % charge and just let the app choose the cheapest half-hour periods to suck the juice in.

The only thing we control via the car itself is pre-heating sometimes, just because our charger/car is actually out of mobile range from the house (live in the country!) so the wife likes to set the timer in the car itself so it's all warm when she gets back to the station of an evening.