New MG4 owner - newbie tips

pjmmk said:

And no smelly hands after handling the pump. Petrol or diesel on your skin can't be good...

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Agreed. I certainly don't miss the trip to the Petrol/Diesel station

salty said:

Agreed. I certainly don't miss the trip to the Petrol/Diesel station

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Same. I was thinking the other day, waiting on a green light next to a servo, how annoying it was to have to hang around the car just standing there pumping fuel. Now I get to plug in and walk away, go do something useful or enjoyable (or on a rare occasion both) while “filling up”.

People tend to focus on the fact charging takes longer, but nobody mentions how you don’t need to be around for it to happen.

Getting my car on Tuesday and this thread is really helpful! I'm on Octopus Tracker at the moment and contemplating switching to Intelligent Go once my Zappi is installed on 3rd March.

One thing I've been thinking about not directly linked to switching to my 1st EV is going from FWD to RWD.

MattyS said:

Getting my car on Tuesday and this thread is really helpful! I'm on Octopus Tracker at the moment and contemplating switching to Intelligent Go once my Zappi is installed on 3rd March.

One thing I've been thinking about not directly linked to switching to my 1st EV is going from FWD to RWD.

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I'm sure you'll love the new car. It's really nice to drive once you tame all that interfering NCAP nonsense.

pjmmk said:

I'm sure you'll love the new car. It's really nice to drive once you tame all that interfering NCAP nonsense.

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I'm really looking forward to it and my wife is too (she wants to learn to drive because of the incoming MG4!)

MattyS said:

I'm really looking forward to it and my wife is too (she wants to learn to drive because of the incoming MG4!)

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Is that good or bad, Matty.

salty said:

Is that good or bad, Matty.

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I'm on the fence if I'm honest but I'm sure she'll be capable with the right instruction/training

It’s good when you want a beer!!

These emails from Octopus are worrying - first they don’t seem to know their Octopus Go off peak hours, second they don’t understand the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff!

So I have no faith whatsoever as to what rate I’ve been charging at.

I’ve gone back and asked them to review their response, telling them how their product works! (Email not shown)

Don't start me on Octopus customer support. They don't seem to have the foggiest clue.

SBJames said:

These emails from Octopus are worrying - first they don’t seem to know their Octopus Go off peak hours, second they don’t understand the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff!

So I have no faith whatsoever as to what rate I’ve been charging at.

I’ve gone back and asked them to review their response, telling them how their product works! (Email not shown)

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I understand your concern I felt the same way when I started on IOG.

When I got slots outside the off peak I was checking on the usage charts in the Octopus App to try and make sure I was being charged at the off peak rate. The charts in the App show costs based on the peak rate even when it’s a scheduled charge period from IOG.
Based on this I was composing an indignant email to Octopus with lots of detail and screen shots However, I held back until I got my first bill following the change to IOG.
The bills from Octopus include graphs for each day of the billing period, in half hour bars. There is a red line showing the unit charge. These graphs clearly show the rate dropping to the 7p in all the slots I was allocated outside the off peak hours. I even worked out the total costs for a few of the days and everything checked out.
So, in my case, the usage charts in the App don’t take into account the extra cheap slots but it is noted as a beta and is really just a guide.
The actual bills present clear detailed information which satisfied me that I was being charged what I expected.
I no longer obsess about it but I will probably still do some random checks in the future

I also run Home Assistant and with Octopus Integration I can see the unit rate drop in real time whenever I’m in a scheduled slot.

Hmm, OK, thanks @SteveMSJ , you’ll forgive me for going a little light outside of 11:30pm to 5:30am until I get a bill!

Yes the App at least admits it doesn’t have a clue and just won’t tell me the total spent since I changed from some fixed tariff to IOG!

I’ll be a little peeved if it hasn’t worked given I’ve purposely put washing and stuff on during the same windows!

I suppose the bit that most concerns me is the lack of “yeah, nice try mate” when I tell it I want 80% in a fairly short window, and just seems to offer a fair few ‘on peak’ hours.

My dad said they do an Octopus Mini or something? That shows you the live rate you’re paying… basically a next gen energy monitor I think?

I’ve hear of this Home Assistant…. But no idea how it all works. Is it hard to get working? I’d quite like to see the rate live on my PC/phone…

SBJames said:

My dad said they do an Octopus Mini or something? That shows you the live rate you’re paying… basically a next gen energy monitor I think?

I’ve hear of this Home Assistant…. But no idea how it all works. Is it hard to get working? I’d quite like to see the rate live on my PC/phone…

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I have an Octopus Mini which basically acts as a link between your smart meters and Octopus so that the info in the Octopus app is effectively live. For electricity it updates about every 15 secs if I remember correctly (EDIT it is actually every 10 seconds). I can't check just now as I'm not importing. For gas its every 30 mins as that is a limitation of the gas smart meter. The usage for live data in the app however doesn't currently show cost, so no help for this particular question.

The Home Assistant integration benefits from the mini as it is downloading the info from Octopus. The advantage of Home Assistant over the Octopus App is that you get other information, such as the current unit rate. It is here that you see it drop to 7p at the start of a scheduled slot and back to peak at the end. You can automate all sorts of things in Home Assistant to take advantage of the cheap rate if you so wish.

I've been into Home Automation for nearly 20 years and currently run Home Assistant alongside HomeSeer, which has been my system of choice from the begining. If I was starting out today it would be primarily Home Assistant as it has matured dramatically in the last couple of years and is much more stable than it used to be. That said there is a pretty steep learning curve if you've never dabbled in this kind of application before.

There are loads of step by step videos for beginners though.

SBJames said:

I’ll be a little peeved if it hasn’t worked given I’ve purposely put washing and stuff on during the same windows!

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If the Octopus app gives you a slot either inside or outside the cheap window, the entire house takes advantage...and it does work, I was sceptical at first because I agree, the humans at customer support, and the AI drafting email responses don't understand how it works. Fortunately tech support and billing do so relax, it does just sort of...work.

This is the response I got. Clearly, as you say @RaspberryMan and @SteveMSJ they just don’t have a clue!

I will charge cautiously until I get my first bill… I’ve done enough ‘on peak’ off speak charging to see if it works.

Given how great and modern the offering is from Octopus it really does seem a bit of a weakness to have such a lack of knowledge in customer service!

SteveMSJ said:

I have an Octopus Mini which basically acts as a link between your smart meters and Octopus so that the info in the Octopus app is effectively live. For electricity it updates about every 15 secs if I remember correctly. I can't check just now as I'm not importing. For gas its every 30 mins as that is a limitation of the gas smart meter. The usage for live data in the app however doesn't currently show cost, so no help for this particular question.

The Home Assistant integration benefits from the mini as it is downloading the info from Octopus. The advantage of Home Assistant over the Octopus App is that you get other information, such as the current unit rate. It is here that you see it drop to 7p at the start of a scheduled slot and back to peak at the end. You can automate all sorts of things in Home Assistant to take advantage of the cheap rate if you so wish.

I've been into Home Automation for nearly 20 years and currently run Home Assistant alongside HomeSeer, which has been my system of choice from the begining. If I was starting out today it would be primarily Home Assistant as it has matured dramatically in the last couple of years and is much more stable than it used to be. That said there is a pretty steep learning curve if you've never dabbled in this kind of application before.

There are loads of step by step videos for beginners though.

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If you have Solar panels, the Home Mini will also show your feed-back to the grid

If you haven't already, Ohme/Octopus users should join here;-


I learned all about the way the two work before we got our MG and we've never had a charging problem.

tonybridge said:

If you have Solar panels, the Home Mini will also show your feed-back to the grid

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It does indeed. Also I've checked and the update period for electricity is actually 10 seconds, I've edited my previous post.

Well I've never been so excited as to receive a leccy bill!

But it finally came today... and +10 points for @SteveMSJ and -100 for Octopus Energy's Customer Services! You were quite right Steve, the bill (fortunately electronic, rather than cutting down half a forest!) does show the half hour slots and all the times my Ohme said I was smart charging the rates dropped down.

There's only one surge in leccy usage I can see outside of that window (a 5:30-6am slot) no idea why, but not enough to worry about - I may have turned on the pre-conditioning before going to work, I can't remember.

Still, Mrs SBJames can now do the washing to her heart's content, as long as Octopus offer me a window!

SteveMSJ said:

I understand your concern I felt the same way when I started on IOG.

When I got slots outside the off peak I was checking on the usage charts in the Octopus App to try and make sure I was being charged at the off peak rate. The charts in the App show costs based on the peak rate even when it’s a scheduled charge period from IOG.
Based on this I was composing an indignant email to Octopus with lots of detail and screen shots However, I held back until I got my first bill following the change to IOG.
The bills from Octopus include graphs for each day of the billing period, in half hour bars. There is a red line showing the unit charge. These graphs clearly show the rate dropping to the 7p in all the slots I was allocated outside the off peak hours. I even worked out the total costs for a few of the days and everything checked out.
So, in my case, the usage charts in the App don’t take into account the extra cheap slots but it is noted as a beta and is really just a guide.
The actual bills present clear detailed information which satisfied me that I was being charged what I expected.
I no longer obsess about it but I will probably still do some random checks in the future

I also run Home Assistant and with Octopus Integration I can see the unit rate drop in real time whenever I’m in a scheduled slot.

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Yes it is brilliant isn't it. As I'm retured I tell the Ohme Pro I need the car for 10 am & IGO spreads the low rate into the morning.