MG 4 charging

[janeyb]

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the fact that I had suddenly stopped being able to use Intelligent Octopus Go as connection had been lost and it wouldn't reconnect. To try to sort it out, I would ring Octopus who would be utterly charming and tell me they were escalating it but nothing seemed to happen. After a week, I rang myenergi just in case it was a Zappi problem and they were able to say within seconds that octopus had turned off the third party integration and had stopped sending signals to the Zappi. I rang back Octopus and they were a little bit patronising : 'its not just a case of flicking the switch back on....' . However, I then went on holiday for just over a week and when I came back it was all working ! I wasn't impressed with Octopus and their ability to keep me informed about what was happening. But hey ho.

Today's dilemma - when you have a 2 hour slot of free electricity, do you use it to put some charge in the car? Or do you take the view that constant partial charging just wears out the Zappi more quickly ? I'm thinking more of the actual parts rather than electricity side of things but would be interested to hear what people with more knowledge think!

 

[aitch]

Today's dilemma - when you have a 2 hour slot of free electricity, do you use it to put some charge in the car? Or do you take the view that constant partial charging just wears out the Zappi more quickly ? I'm thinking more of the actual parts rather than electricity side of things but would be interested to hear what people with more knowledge think!

I would take the view that charging the car for a sustained period like 2 hours would be fine.
I would be concerned with the charger switching on and off repeatedly every minute or so.

 

[janeyb]

I would take the view that charging the car for a sustained period like 2 hours would be fine.
I would be concerned with the charger switching on and off repeatedly every minute or so.

Thank you !

 

[Turkish]

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the fact that I had suddenly stopped being able to use Intelligent Octopus Go as connection had been lost and it wouldn't reconnect. To try to sort it out, I would ring Octopus who would be utterly charming and tell me they were escalating it but nothing seemed to happen. After a week, I rang myenergi just in case it was a Zappi problem and they were able to say within seconds that octopus had turned off the third party integration and had stopped sending signals to the Zappi. I rang back Octopus and they were a little bit patronising : 'its not just a case of flicking the switch back on....' . However, I then went on holiday for just over a week and when I came back it was all working ! I wasn't impressed with Octopus and their ability to keep me informed about what was happening. But hey ho.

Today's dilemma - when you have a 2 hour slot of free electricity, do you use it to put some charge in the car? Or do you take the view that constant partial charging just wears out the Zappi more quickly ? I'm thinking more of the actual parts rather than electricity side of things but would be interested to hear what people with more knowledge think!

If you are on IOG then slots can be variable across each half hour anyway. A constant 2 hour charge is no bother at all.

 

[Griiffalo]

Is this about power company supply plans in the UK?
Would an international comparison be interesting?
Choosing power plans here in Australia is sounds similar.
We opted for the midnight to 6 a.m. low charge ($0.08/kWh on a separate circuit) for our MG4 rather than a free 2hour period for all electronics two days a week. Generally the MG4 says it will finish charging to 80% between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. if we start it at midnight. Two hours free twice doesn’t add up quite as well.
We don’t need to charge every night. Our monthly EV bill is AU$ 18 to 30 (with an average around $24) per month depending on how far we drive. We have done about 19,000 km in the last 12 months. The electric hot water bill per month is more than the car at the current rates per kWh even though the car uses more kWh. Fortunately bill does itemise each consumption category where a different rate applies.
We do have solar panels but it is really only a small house system 2 kW that we bought a several years ago. It is not designed to charge an EV. The peak day time cost of electricity from late spring to early autumn but especially in summer can be between $0.01 and -$0.01 per half hour. (The app shows you how much you use in 30 minute sections). There is very little to be gained by exporting the grid ($4.75 this month).
Unfortunately the cost of a much larger solar system with battery and then running the car exclusively off solar just does not add up financially. It only makes sense in the long term environmentally. It would however take more than 20 years to break even.

 

[Bam Bam]

Unfortunately the cost of a much larger solar system with battery and then running the car exclusively off solar just does not add up financially. It only makes sense in the long term environmentally. It would however take more than 20 years to break even.

I'm assuming that is because your daytime electricity is so cheap. Presumably that is because there is already so much solar supply on the grid.

So your difference between the savings from supplying your own electricity vs. buying some in is quite small.

Here in the UK electricity is expensive (except for tariffs for EV drivers overnight or on Sundays) and we don't have that much solar on the grid.

I expect we will get more solar in the coming years so that our sunny Summer days will be solar powered, but we would need a LOT of panels to get us through winter. So much so that we would then have far too much for Summer.