Intelligent Octopus and Cupra

[RKJM30]

While on Intelligent Octopus with the smart charging active in the Octopus app yes, the car will charge at the normal rate until Octopus notice it is charging they will then send a signal to the car to stop charging. The Octopus FAQs say that the check frequency is every 30 minutes. So yes I’m trying to avoid the car charging at peak rate (in excess of 40p/kWh) for anything between 0 and 30 minutes every time the car is plugged in. Pressing stop charge achieves that aim.

While on Intelligent Octopus the cheap window for everything is always 2330-0530 regardless of whether the car is charging or not.

It is also possible that additional 30 minute windows at cheap rate may be applied by Octopus. These additional windows are decided by the smart charging app when it maps the charge at approx 5pm every day (assuming the car is plugged in by then, if not it will create the charging map when the car is plugged in after 5pm). The charge mapping can be viewed in the Octopus app.

So in summary cheap rate is 2330-0530 every day for the whole house.

And

You might get additional 30 minute windows at cheap rate (for the whole house) if the charge mapping decides to.

There is no cheap rate charging for the car for the period after it is plugged in up to the point the charge is stopped (unless that happens in the 2330-0530 window).

I worked out the saving going from Octopus Go to Intelligent Octopus was about £85 per year, but the additional cost of waiting for Octopus to stop the charge after plugging in (assuming the car is plugged in once per day and the delay averaged to 15 minutes with the charger set to 7kw (32amps)) would be about £210.

[Born2Ride]

This is good info, much appreciated. Once I hear back on how my solar export is calculated I'll be ready to take the plunge. I'll report back.

[RKJM30]

I can confirm that pressing the “Stop Charge” button on the infotainment system successfully stops the charge immediately after plugging in and causes no problems with the Intelligent Octopus smart charging. This is a real winner as it will save approximately £210 per year in peak rate charging waiting for octopus to stop the charge.

[davmatjo]

That's great news, I look forward to cutting my charging costs by 2/3!

[alex1337]

I switched to this tariff after doing the maths. The smart changing overnight didn't work and my car wasn't charged. I've turned off the smart charging and just set my Hypervolt to charge in the cheap tariff hours. Seems better than this stop charging faff.

[davmatjo]

The main benefit of letting them control the charge is that you will sometimes get extra slots outside the usual 6 hour window. It has worked fine for me, though it tends to take until 5 mins or so into each window before the car will accept the charge command.

[preddall]

I've been using Intelligent Octopus for some time.

I have an Ohme charger and I use their app to schedule charges.

In the Ohme app you are ableto specify the battery % you require and the departure deadline for completion e.g if you want charge from 30% to (0% you specify 60% to be added. Works like a dream and the Ohme app calculates the cost based on the actual Octopus rate.

[daern]

A friend pointed out that IO will schedule charging during cheap slots outside of your normal, night-time charging window. As long as the car needs to be charged, and the pricing is low, it will keep you on a cheap rate to keep the car charging. Of course, if you happened to have set your car to trickle-charge mode, this will stretch out this charging window and, thus, extend the cheap, daytime charging slots which, of course, apply to all usage in the home.

Just wondered if anyone had played around with this...?

[davmatjo]

I believe there is a limit to the number of slots it will schedule in a given night, though I haven't tested it.