Octopus Intelligient & Location

[colin123]

oh and this is CEO of OCTOPUS [email protected]

 

[colin123]

Herewith my email just sent to Octopus & BMW UK, please feel free to add, change, copy etc, you will be surprised what a number of emails to the CEO will do, please all do same

Dear BMW & Octopus,


BMW EV Charging Fault


I will refer you to just ONE forum link ( https://www.mybmwi3.com/threads/oct...11-13&utm_content=daily_newsletter#post-82111 ) regarding the problems that a huge amount of BMW owners are having charging their vehicles at a set time/schedule, using OCTOPUS (and maybe other Electricity providers?).


It is an extremely widespread issue that has severe implications to our finances and battery health, and as of yet no one has taken reasonability, admitted the fault or most importantly its seems have taken no action to rectify it!?


In-short, I set my EV charger as a dumb terminal, I set my BMW (i3) app to charge immediately and I set-up OCTOPUS INTELLIGENT (OI) to dictate the times and maximum charge level. This has been working 99% of the time since I installed it, but from several weeks ago there is now no rhyme and reason to the charge pattern at all, it's completely ad-hoc & random, 'haywire' is probably a better description.


I am having to literally stay awake until the early hours so my car charges off-peak and not to 100%, and indeed stays charging so I can get to work, you have to admit that this is totally unacceptable?


I have contacted Octopus on numerous occasions, I am disappointed with the lack of support and very slow responses, the one reply I did receive stated that they were not able to receive the location from my BMW i3, although it is in the same place and showing correctly in the BMW app.


For the record I have also on several occasions reset, uninstalled and re-installed OI, BMW app & EV Charger + App.


Rumour is that this problem is something to do with BMW making a change recently which will not allow OI to have access ?


Whatever the cause, it is widespread and it is having a detrimental effect on so many people, PLEASE, can this receive the URGENT attention it now requires ?


Kind Regards,

 

[Gonville]

Even ten years ago, you would think that they would have been able to conceive of the idea of someone charging at home, using a time of use special tariff? Possibly a tariff that allows the energy supplier to dynamically move charge slots around? Even 10 years ago, I don't think that idea would have been radical. But BMW were not forward-thinking enough to include the commands necessary in the command set of their API? To me it seems hard to fathom - perhaps to others it seems obvious that they wouldn't have thought about it.

I had the car in 2014 and there were no variable time of use tariffs such as exist now with IOG. There were night storage heater tariffs known as Econony 7 and Economy 12. I had to argue to get that from Scottish Power as their first question was “Do you have storage heaters? No? Then why do you want this?” Was 6p for midnight to 7am. The car charged in 3 hours so the battery was full well before the end of the tariff period. So no I don’t attach any negative criticism to BMW for this simple API command set.

I just have to add that in 2020 I still had to set a manual timer on my zappi for the Tesla model 3 that could not be charged in a set window. Could set a start time or an end time or a percentage for completion but not under any circumstances a simple timed window. So yes others with more complicated solutions have also been backwards thinking.

 

[Gonville]

Herewith my email just sent to Octopus & BMW UK, please feel free to add, change, copy etc, you will be surprised what a number of emails to the CEO will do, please all do same

Dear BMW & Octopus,


BMW EV Charging Fault


I will refer you to just ONE forum link ( https://www.mybmwi3.com/threads/oct...11-13&utm_content=daily_newsletter#post-82111 ) regarding the problems that a huge amount of BMW owners are having charging their vehicles at a set time/schedule, using OCTOPUS (and maybe other Electricity providers?).


It is an extremely widespread issue that has severe implications to our finances and battery health, and as of yet no one has taken reasonability, admitted the fault or most importantly its seems have taken no action to rectify it!?


In-short, I set my EV charger as a dumb terminal, I set my BMW (i3) app to charge immediately and I set-up OCTOPUS INTELLIGENT (OI) to dictate the times and maximum charge level. This has been working 99% of the time since I installed it, but from several weeks ago there is now no rhyme and reason to the charge pattern at all, it's completely ad-hoc & random, 'haywire' is probably a better description.


I am having to literally stay awake until the early hours so my car charges off-peak and not to 100%, and indeed stays charging so I can get to work, you have to admit that this is totally unacceptable?


I have contacted Octopus on numerous occasions, I am disappointed with the lack of support and very slow responses, the one reply I did receive stated that they were not able to receive the location from my BMW i3, although it is in the same place and showing correctly in the BMW app.


For the record I have also on several occasions reset, uninstalled and re-installed OI, BMW app & EV Charger + App.


Rumour is that this problem is something to do with BMW making a change recently which will not allow OI to have access ?


Whatever the cause, it is widespread and it is having a detrimental effect on so many people, PLEASE, can this receive the URGENT attention it now requires ?


Kind Regards,

I applaud the effort but….

It lets both companies off the hook as it isn’t nailing one of their feet to the floor. Which was my previous suggestion. Octopus have been very clear in their response that they can’t be responsible for the random messages. There is no information to my knowledge that the API has changed to prevent access for Octopus so that is unhelpful, I would suggest, as that is just putting that solution in their heads.

Better to say:

Dear sir

BMW’s connected drive server is sending my car unsolicited messages every 4 hours that resets my charge profile.

This is stopping my car from being charged correctly.

Time is of the essence in resolving this and I require you to use your best endeavours to resolve this by the end of this month.

Thank you for your attention.

 

[colin123]

well said...

 

[Gonville]

Just for information.

I have spoken to my colleague who has a 120Ah i3. He has a zappi. When he switch to octopus he set up the zappi to charge his car direct. So Octopus controls the zappi and has never had access to his BMWid or the i3 charge schedule.

Guess what?

He just checked his ‘Vehicle Information’ ‘Remote History’ is…..

….empty.

 

[colin123]

Just for information.

I have spoken to my colleague who has a 120Ah i3. He has a zappi. When he switch to octopus he set up the zappi to charge his car direct. So Octopus controls the zappi and has never had access to his BMWid or the i3 charge schedule.

Guess what?

He just checked his ‘Vehicle Information’ ‘Remote History’ is…..

….empty.

Elobarate, are you saying IO (Intellegient Octopus) has been charging correctly and still is or there has been a problem charging using IO?

 

[mojo]

There are two ways that IOG can control charging - one by sending instructions to the car, and the other by sending instructions to the charge point.

Gonville gives an example of the latter and the fact that, in that case, no polling happens at the car, swings the balance of blame back towards Octopus rather than BMW (IMO).

Unfortunately we cannot resolve this. It needs someone at BMW and Octopus and all of the intermediary companies to look at what is happening and figure out how to stop it. In reality it is probably just misconfiguration somewhere - but there is no sign that anyone with the necessary knowledge is looking for that.

 

[Gonville]

I have emailed my text to BMWUK.

 

[Gonville]

Elobarate, are you saying IO (Intelligent Octopus) has been charging correctly and still is or there has been a problem charging using IO?

As @mojo has described Intelligent octopus is working perfectly for my colleague via the registered device being the zappi. He has never registered the i3 with Octopus. He has no random profile messages recorded in Remote History. So…..that implies that using Octopus Intelligent Go with a wall charger doesn’t cause this problem.

So….it could be that having used the car as the registered device means some random message has been created. However I have another vehicle (i4) that receives the same messages and was never registered with IOG but does use the same id. So inconclusive.

 

[jeeringtowser]

I have just had a long chat to BMW Connected!
BMW have changed the security to prevent any third parties being able to access BMW vehicles.
This is a permanent change and is here to stay.
Their advice is to disconnect ones vehicle from the Octopus app and set the charge via the car or BMW app.
I have spoken to BMW Connect again at the behest of Octopus, BMW have asked Octopus to contact them direct.
I have asked Octopus to do this!
I await a reply.

 

[Gonville]

 

[Gonville]

I have just had a long chat to BMW Connected!
BMW have changed the security to prevent any third parties being able to access BMW vehicles.
This is a permanent change and is here to stay.
Their advice is to disconnect ones vehicle from the Octopus app and set the charge via the car or BMW app.
I have spoken to BMW Connect again at the behest of Octopus, BMW have asked Octopus to contact them direct.
I have asked Octopus to do this!
I await a reply.

I was afraid this would happen. The tariff will get withdrawn which will be a loss to everyone. Sad.

 

[zeroid]

I was afraid this would happen. The tariff will get withdrawn which will be a loss to everyone. Sad.

I wouldn't think this alone would cause the IOG tariff to be withdrawn, but certainly could cause Octopus to remove support for the (direct i3) device on IOG, which would be diappointing to me as a granny charger only user, using the tariff with the additional off-peak hours in mind.