That's a lot of technology to solve this problem, may I offer a simpler solution. I own a Tesla and was very surprised to find Renault don't offer a maximum charge facility when I bought a Zoe for my wife a couple of months ago. However this is what I do: there are six custom charge programs on the Zoe and these are controllable from the app. Simply set program 1 to charge for 1 hour, program 2 to charge for 2 hours etc all the way up to a 6 hour charge. When you want to charge the Zoe just select the number of hours you want by selecting the program from the app. After a few charges, you quickly get used to which program you need based on the Zoe's current state of charge.
Oh, that's really interesting, thanks. Yes, I agree - it seems like a lot of tech to do something so relatively basic! I can't immediately think how to switch between programmes as I'm a bit tired, but let me muse on that
My approach to Zoe charging faced the same problem but I found a different solution. I had builders in just before I bought the car so asked the electrician to run a 32a feed through my garage to an interlocked Commando 32a switched socket on the outside of my garage which has multiple uses. I then bought a new 32a Type 2 charge adapter (£100) to connect the 32a socket to the car - this has similar intelligence to wall mounted EVSE such as the Ohme but in portable form. I then contacted my elec supplier Ovo and took their Charge Anytime tariff which is currently 7p/kWh. Ovo also use the Renault API to allow me to set a charge deadline and a charge % which I have left at 7:30am and 70% charge. I recently watched a YT video from Engineering Explained titled "How to ruin your Electric car's battery - 3 common mistakes" and I am now considering making my default charge 60% and charging every day.
That's great. Do you know the make of the EVSE you used/use that offers the appropriate amount of control? That would be a help to other owners, who will see your comment here. Thanks
Thanks again for the video. Collected ours last weekend. Have a PodPoint being fitted in the middle of Feb. Currently fast charging when I’m out and about. Really enjoying the car. The quietness and the regen are great. Only thing I don’t like is the horn. Sounds like a cross between Pingu and Ivor the Engine😂
I'm glad you are enjoying it! Ha, I've not noticed the horn sound - but to be fair, NOTHING will be as weedy and awful as the horn on the Smart ForTwo, so I guess I have learned to limit my usage of it! Enjoy :-)
I have a 2021 Zoe and I use only the three pin chargemaster cable I bought at Toolstation. I find this adequate and have a garage to drive into for this. I don't need to drive to work or long distances each week. When planning a long drive, I make sure I have as much charge as possible, to avoid too much public charging. I take advantage of a lower cost night tariff and about 8 hours will charge a third of the battery. I do not use the app or connected services as they seem like a long way round. Each time I charge, i simply record the charge levels before and after and the kWh used by the charger and time, with the same going for Public charging. There are a number of charging programmes within the car's menu, to switch between, to suit the Summer time or winter time and to avoid or go through the 80% barrier. When cold, things go a bit longer, but my spreadsheet gives a great overview of this without the need for a Open University degree. I recommend the Zoe and find that there is no need to scare folk away by suggesting a home charger fitting costing £XXX.
I take your point about level 1 charging being a much cheaper option. I did that myself for about 5 months. Having a hard-wired connection is perhaps slightly better as there are fewer connectors to go wrong. In the States there is some concern about people using plug in chargepoints after a number of people have had connectors, chargepoints and/or wiring melt. It's hard to know if that would happen much in the UK; it seems to me that US equipment and wiring standards are not quite as high as they are here, in some regards. The use of schedules in the ZOE to control charge level is a good idea. Someone else suggested the same thing, and I felt - and still feel - a little foolish for not having thought of it! I was trying to be a bit too accurate, I suspect.
The calculation for the Zoe is simple. Charge at 20%, target 80% then 60% to add. Battery is 50KWh so need to add 30KWh. Charger pushes in 7KW per hour so 30KWH is 4 hour charge. The feed is slightly over 7KW but losses bring it back down again. Just set charge program on car for 1,2,3 or 4 hours. Select the 4 hour program, set start time and job done. It really is very simple.
That's a very fair point. Someone else made the same comment and I feel slightly foolish for not having thought of it, in a way. However, the time taken to charge on a level 1 charger is significantly longer so the limited number of schedules and the lack of integration with an electricity tariff might have been a bit of a limiting factor at the time. I think it's also fair to say that I was trying to be far, far too precise. For some reason I wanted to end up with an exact charge level, when that's really not very important. It must be the scientist in me! I like having alternative solutions for people to consider, so I very much appreciate the comment, thanks.
I never found it complicated to work out how long to charge. My home charger adds 15% an hour to my EV battery. So I used to work out how many times 15% I need to add. eg. if the battery is at 50% I need to schedule a charge for 2hrs to add 30% to get to 80%. Now I'm on the intelligent Octopus tariff it is even simpler. I just select the % charge I need to add to get to 80%. I've had an original Ohme home charger for over three years. No extra SIM card costs yet. My understanding is that Ohme reserve the right to add these extra costs when chargers are over three years old. But they are not currently imposing these costs on any customers.
Ah, an interesting point Malcolm. I found charging on a level 1 EVSE a bit inconsistent in its speed, but on a level 2 it could well be easier. There's a video on efficiency coming that might tease out the difference.
@@theelectrictransition That should be an interesting video. I've heard it is supposed to be more efficient to charge at 7kW than at slower speeds using a 3 pin plug. But is charging efficiency affected much by temperature? What puzzles me is during the past few cold months I have been consistently getting slightly more charge than expected using Intelligent Octopus. eg. Ask for 10% get 11%, Ask for 20% get 22%. I suspect Octopus or Ohme have tweaked some algorithm, but it could also be that charging losses are slightly less when colder, or maybe the cooling fans don't need to switch on resulting in slightly more energy going into the battery?
@malcolmfowler8972 My Ohme and Zoe setup has regularly overshot by 1 or 2 percent throughout my time with it, and while I don't know for sure why, I do have a working hypothesis. When building IT systems that scale to cope with large numbers of requests, it is common to use caching. The idea is that you look up the answer to a request and then store it locally, and give the same answer if the same request is made within a short, predetermined period of time. The connection between Renault's servers and the car is over a mobile connection, and that might be considered a limited resource. Therefore, I think Renault cache what the car last said for a few minutes, and this leads to overshooting when the number jumps by a few percent in one go, as the cache entry expires. It sounds like this has changed for you at some point, and it might be that Renault changed the caching period - or introduced one - if they saw an increase in load. This could have been as they sold more cars, changed the app - or, in fact, because of people using the Ohme integration.
@@theelectrictransition Control of openevse is publishing just one number (available power in Watts - negative number mean you can take that much more). If available power is above ~1440W (6A@240V) it will start charging and will add or subtract power. I calculate it from values of solar production, home battery flow, input breaker, EV battery status and charging mode (stop/solar/night).
@michallindner34 That sounds really good. I had a quick look, it seems like an interesting range of products. Did you buy the kit and make it yourself, or buy a ready-built unit?
I own a Zoe and a Leaf with a Ohme charger and it’s really disappointing that Ohme doesn’t allow you to add multiple cars to the your account. Every time you want to change it you need to login with your car manufacturer account and select the car model. If you use a password manager is quite fast and you get used to it but it’s 2 extra unnecessary steps
@simona4294 Ah, so it doesn't support multiple profiles, that's a shame. That seems like a feature they should add, for people like you with more than one car.
@pablohawthorne4248 Keep it civil and constructive please, or play elsewhere. Making disparaging comments about my viewers is not something I am prepared to accept.
We have an early ohme charger and can’t wait to get rid of it the customer service is rubbish don’t buy one because you can’t get through to then]m if you have a problem. Also the apps is diabolical you can’t set a start time on it we have had it 5 years it’s time to go. Keep up the awesome work
Ohme Charger we ha is rubbish we have had it 5 years and it’s going Costomer service is as good ad the charger you can’t set a start time either. Let’s not even talk ab the app. This is just our experience. Keep the videos coming
I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. I am enjoying the ease of use of mine at the moment - but I haven't had need to reach out to customer service. I can definitely understand why you would be disappointed if you didn't get the help you hoped for.
I think you will be waiting indefinitely - mainly because if it did arrive, you would become very poor very quickly. I have done a video on hydrogen, maybe have a watch of that if you are interested in more detail. ua-cam.com/video/QPsbOyjNBsM/v-deo.html
@@theelectrictransition plenty of information and a good video, i would still rather scalp myself with a fork than go electric but its nice to see content that shows a different angle
@pablehawthorne4248 As you can imagine, I do not agree with your assessment. The ZOE isn't perfect, but it works for me, and I am glad to have found something in which I can get comfortable. That's no easy task.
That's a lot of technology to solve this problem, may I offer a simpler solution. I own a Tesla and was very surprised to find Renault don't offer a maximum charge facility when I bought a Zoe for my wife a couple of months ago. However this is what I do: there are six custom charge programs on the Zoe and these are controllable from the app. Simply set program 1 to charge for 1 hour, program 2 to charge for 2 hours etc all the way up to a 6 hour charge. When you want to charge the Zoe just select the number of hours you want by selecting the program from the app. After a few charges, you quickly get used to which program you need based on the Zoe's current state of charge.
Oh, that's really interesting, thanks. Yes, I agree - it seems like a lot of tech to do something so relatively basic! I can't immediately think how to switch between programmes as I'm a bit tired, but let me muse on that
My approach to Zoe charging faced the same problem but I found a different solution. I had builders in just before I bought the car so asked the electrician to run a 32a feed through my garage to an interlocked Commando 32a switched socket on the outside of my garage which has multiple uses. I then bought a new 32a Type 2 charge adapter (£100) to connect the 32a socket to the car - this has similar intelligence to wall mounted EVSE such as the Ohme but in portable form. I then contacted my elec supplier Ovo and took their Charge Anytime tariff which is currently 7p/kWh. Ovo also use the Renault API to allow me to set a charge deadline and a charge % which I have left at 7:30am and 70% charge. I recently watched a YT video from Engineering Explained titled "How to ruin your Electric car's battery - 3 common mistakes" and I am now considering making my default charge 60% and charging every day.
That's great. Do you know the make of the EVSE you used/use that offers the appropriate amount of control? That would be a help to other owners, who will see your comment here. Thanks
Thanks again for the video. Collected ours last weekend. Have a PodPoint being fitted in the middle of Feb. Currently fast charging when I’m out and about.
Really enjoying the car. The quietness and the regen are great. Only thing I don’t like is the horn. Sounds like a cross between Pingu and Ivor the Engine😂
I'm glad you are enjoying it! Ha, I've not noticed the horn sound - but to be fair, NOTHING will be as weedy and awful as the horn on the Smart ForTwo, so I guess I have learned to limit my usage of it! Enjoy :-)
I have a 2021 Zoe and I use only the three pin chargemaster cable I bought at Toolstation. I find this adequate and have a garage to drive into for this. I don't need to drive to work or long distances each week. When planning a long drive, I make sure I have as much charge as possible, to avoid too much public charging. I take advantage of a lower cost night tariff and about 8 hours will charge a third of the battery. I do not use the app or connected services as they seem like a long way round. Each time I charge, i simply record the charge levels before and after and the kWh used by the charger and time, with the same going for Public charging. There are a number of charging programmes within the car's menu, to switch between, to suit the Summer time or winter time and to avoid or go through the 80% barrier. When cold, things go a bit longer, but my spreadsheet gives a great overview of this without the need for a Open University degree. I recommend the Zoe and find that there is no need to scare folk away by suggesting a home charger fitting costing £XXX.
I take your point about level 1 charging being a much cheaper option. I did that myself for about 5 months.
Having a hard-wired connection is perhaps slightly better as there are fewer connectors to go wrong. In the States there is some concern about people using plug in chargepoints after a number of people have had connectors, chargepoints and/or wiring melt. It's hard to know if that would happen much in the UK; it seems to me that US equipment and wiring standards are not quite as high as they are here, in some regards.
The use of schedules in the ZOE to control charge level is a good idea. Someone else suggested the same thing, and I felt - and still feel - a little foolish for not having thought of it! I was trying to be a bit too accurate, I suspect.
The calculation for the Zoe is simple. Charge at 20%, target 80% then 60% to add. Battery is 50KWh so need to add 30KWh. Charger pushes in 7KW per hour so 30KWH is 4 hour charge. The feed is slightly over 7KW but losses bring it back down again. Just set charge program on car for 1,2,3 or 4 hours. Select the 4 hour program, set start time and job done. It really is very simple.
That's a very fair point. Someone else made the same comment and I feel slightly foolish for not having thought of it, in a way. However, the time taken to charge on a level 1 charger is significantly longer so the limited number of schedules and the lack of integration with an electricity tariff might have been a bit of a limiting factor at the time.
I think it's also fair to say that I was trying to be far, far too precise. For some reason I wanted to end up with an exact charge level, when that's really not very important. It must be the scientist in me!
I like having alternative solutions for people to consider, so I very much appreciate the comment, thanks.
I never found it complicated to work out how long to charge. My home charger adds 15% an hour to my EV battery. So I used to work out how many times 15% I need to add. eg. if the battery is at 50% I need to schedule a charge for 2hrs to add 30% to get to 80%.
Now I'm on the intelligent Octopus tariff it is even simpler. I just select the % charge I need to add to get to 80%.
I've had an original Ohme home charger for over three years. No extra SIM card costs yet. My understanding is that Ohme reserve the right to add these extra costs when chargers are over three years old. But they are not currently imposing these costs on any customers.
Ah, an interesting point Malcolm. I found charging on a level 1 EVSE a bit inconsistent in its speed, but on a level 2 it could well be easier. There's a video on efficiency coming that might tease out the difference.
@@theelectrictransition That should be an interesting video. I've heard it is supposed to be more efficient to charge at 7kW than at slower speeds using a 3 pin plug. But is charging efficiency affected much by temperature?
What puzzles me is during the past few cold months I have been consistently getting slightly more charge than expected using Intelligent Octopus. eg. Ask for 10% get 11%, Ask for 20% get 22%. I suspect Octopus or Ohme have tweaked some algorithm, but it could also be that charging losses are slightly less when colder, or maybe the cooling fans don't need to switch on resulting in slightly more energy going into the battery?
@malcolmfowler8972 My Ohme and Zoe setup has regularly overshot by 1 or 2 percent throughout my time with it, and while I don't know for sure why, I do have a working hypothesis.
When building IT systems that scale to cope with large numbers of requests, it is common to use caching. The idea is that you look up the answer to a request and then store it locally, and give the same answer if the same request is made within a short, predetermined period of time. The connection between Renault's servers and the car is over a mobile connection, and that might be considered a limited resource. Therefore, I think Renault cache what the car last said for a few minutes, and this leads to overshooting when the number jumps by a few percent in one go, as the cache entry expires.
It sounds like this has changed for you at some point, and it might be that Renault changed the caching period - or introduced one - if they saw an increase in load. This could have been as they sold more cars, changed the app - or, in fact, because of people using the Ohme integration.
I use OpenEVSE charger (WiFi connected) and made solar and zoe charge limit integrations in NodeRed (might run on NAS in docker or on Rasberry PI)
Oh, interesting. I wasn't aware of OpenEVSE. Thanks, I'll have a look
@@theelectrictransition Control of openevse is publishing just one number (available power in Watts - negative number mean you can take that much more). If available power is above ~1440W (6A@240V) it will start charging and will add or subtract power. I calculate it from values of solar production, home battery flow, input breaker, EV battery status and charging mode (stop/solar/night).
@michallindner34 That sounds really good. I had a quick look, it seems like an interesting range of products. Did you buy the kit and make it yourself, or buy a ready-built unit?
@@theelectrictransition I bought a kit.
I own a Zoe and a Leaf with a Ohme charger and it’s really disappointing that Ohme doesn’t allow you to add multiple cars to the your account. Every time you want to change it you need to login with your car manufacturer account and select the car model. If you use a password manager is quite fast and you get used to it but it’s 2 extra unnecessary steps
You are the very definition of masculinity by driving a leaf and a zoe. 😅
@simona4294 Ah, so it doesn't support multiple profiles, that's a shame. That seems like a feature they should add, for people like you with more than one car.
@pablohawthorne4248 Keep it civil and constructive please, or play elsewhere. Making disparaging comments about my viewers is not something I am prepared to accept.
We have an early ohme charger and can’t wait to get rid of it the customer service is rubbish don’t buy one because you can’t get through to then]m if you have a problem. Also the apps is diabolical you can’t set a start time on it we have had it 5 years it’s time to go. Keep up the awesome work
Oh, I'm sorry to hear you've had problems with yours. That's a shame. Was it a Home Pro like mine, or the smaller level 1 EVSE with a 13A plug?
It was a home charger @@theelectrictransition
Ohme Charger we ha is rubbish we have had it 5 years and it’s going Costomer service is as good ad the charger you can’t set a start time either. Let’s not even talk ab the app. This is just our experience. Keep the videos coming
I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. I am enjoying the ease of use of mine at the moment - but I haven't had need to reach out to customer service. I can definitely understand why you would be disappointed if you didn't get the help you hoped for.
gosh who wants this crap. just fill up with petrol, then repeat a month later
Don't worry, it's all nice and easy once you have got yourself set up
zzzzzzzzz
wait for hydrogen ICE
I think you will be waiting indefinitely - mainly because if it did arrive, you would become very poor very quickly. I have done a video on hydrogen, maybe have a watch of that if you are interested in more detail. ua-cam.com/video/QPsbOyjNBsM/v-deo.html
@@theelectrictransition plenty of information and a good video, i would still rather scalp myself with a fork than go electric but its nice to see content that shows a different angle
No man should be driving this car. Terrible car
Sounds like you have had a bad experience. One year in (3 year lease) and I love my Zoe. Does everything I need perfectly.
@@alistairlambert3275 No he has never owned one but is just a troll.
@pablehawthorne4248 As you can imagine, I do not agree with your assessment. The ZOE isn't perfect, but it works for me, and I am glad to have found something in which I can get comfortable. That's no easy task.