2 ev household - charge/register 2 cars?

[Patio]

Complete Newby here so go gentle please

Just about to get a byd dolphin for mrs and I drive a hybrid, likely to be full ev in a year

Can you charge 2 cars at home? We are octopus but brief looking at it you can only register 1 car

I'm sure there's a simple answer if any can advise

Thanks

[RotorRambler]

Hi
No reason why not, Octopus won’t know or care.
What charger are you getting?, on my Ohme I can switch that between different EVs. My Ohme is integrated with Octopus Intelligent Go.

“ Charging Two EVs at Home with Octopus Intelligent Octopus Go

1. One Vehicle Integration Limit:
Currently, Octopus Energy’s Intelligent Octopus Go allows integration with only one vehicle per account.

2. Using a Compatible Smart Charger:
To manage charging for both vehicles, consider using a compatible smart charger like the MyEnergi Zappi. By integrating the charger (instead of a specific car) with IOG, you can plug in either vehicle, and the system will manage charging schedules”

Edited by RotorRambler on Wednesday 28th May 08:12

[Maracus]

We just charge ours using 1 x 7kW socket on Octopus. If we need to charge both up at the same time, we just use the granny charger.

One is registered on the Intelligent, the other will just get topped up as required during the 2330 > 0530 timeslot.

[Frimley111R]

Yes because you won't need to charge them at the same time. One charger is fine.

[FWIW]

We have a Wallbox and a granny charger. Mrs FWIW doesn’t do many miles so the IO 23.30-05.30 slot is sufficient, even though we’re restricted to 20A total due the the garage being some distance from the house and the cable being a little undersized.
We’d probably get away without the Wallbox and just use granny chargers.

[clockworks]

Intelligent Go, with a compatible charger.
Set it up for the car with the biggest battery, and just ask for a lower percentage when you charge the car with the smaller battery.

Octopus won't track the car, just the charger, so they aren't bothered which car is plugged in.

[plfrench]

We've got two chargers and two cars with Ovo Anytime - they allow multiple cars per account.

Both are able to charge at the same time with the 7p/kWh pricing. Has worked absolutely fine since Sep '23 when we added a second EV to the household.

[JD]

As others have posted above, we have one car setup on intelligent octopus and the other car (which does less miles and in a more predictable pattern) just set to charge on its built in schedule at 23:30-05:30

Works out well, we seem to average 11p/kWh for the whole house (small)

This is with a single charger which is going fine for about 35k/year total (27k/8k), but other house will have 2 for convenience.

[TheRainMaker]

plfrench said:

We've got two chargers

What did the DNO say about that? Are you on a three-phase supply?

[B5mike]

Twin home chargers are fine if they limit the total current draw to 32A. Tesla Wallchargers communicate with each other wirelessly (not via your home Wi Fi) to ensure this. With two installed and correctly configured, when one car is charging, it gets 32A. When 2 cars are charging they get 16A each. Some other home chargers can do the same.

Re Octopus Int Go, simpler to link one of your EVs via the car API and have non-smart home charger/s. Just program the second EV to charge during the off peak hours.

[clockworks]

B5mike said:

Twin home chargers are fine if they limit the total current draw to 32A. Tesla Wallchargers communicate with each other wirelessly (not via your home Wi Fi) to ensure this. With two installed and correctly configured, when one car is charging, it gets 32A. When 2 cars are charging they get 16A each. Some other home chargers can do the same.

Re Octopus Int Go, simpler to link one of your EVs via the car API and have non-smart home charger/s. Just program the second EV to charge during the off peak hours.

Much better to use a compatible charger, then you can charge any car you like, and get the extra cheap slots for all cars, no messing with timers/schedules.

The other problem with relying on a compatible car is some manufacturers have disabled third party access to their API. Plenty of JLR owners were hit by this a while ago, and had to drop onto the standard Go tariff. Other manufaturers' APIs just stopped working after updates.

Using the car's API is no use if you don't have a decent mobile signal (some chargers use the house wifi or ethernet), or if you have a 3g car and 3g has been switched off in your area.

[B5mike]

clockworks said:

B5mike said:

Twin home chargers are fine if they limit the total current draw to 32A. Tesla Wallchargers communicate with each other wirelessly (not via your home Wi Fi) to ensure this. With two installed and correctly configured, when one car is charging, it gets 32A. When 2 cars are charging they get 16A each. Some other home chargers can do the same.

Re Octopus Int Go, simpler to link one of your EVs via the car API and have non-smart home charger/s. Just program the second EV to charge during the off peak hours.

Much better to use a compatible charger, then you can charge any car you like, and get the extra cheap slots for all cars, no messing with timers/schedules.

The other problem with relying on a compatible car is some manufacturers have disabled third party access to their API. Plenty of JLR owners were hit by this a while ago, and had to drop onto the standard Go tariff. Other manufaturers' APIs just stopped working after updates.

Using the car's API is no use if you don't have a decent mobile signal (some chargers use the house wifi or ethernet), or if you have a 3g car and 3g has been switched off in your area.

I was referring to twin home charger solutions. That said, JLR is hardly an EV leader or typical.

[plfrench]

TheRainMaker said:

plfrench said:

We've got two chargers

What did the DNO say about that? Are you on a three-phase supply?

No just 100A main fuse. The installing company for the second charger asked if we already had a charger as part of their pre-install survey, so nothing hidden. Installation certs issued so above board as far as I know.

[Sheepshanks]

plfrench said:

TheRainMaker said:

plfrench said:

We've got two chargers

What did the DNO say about that? Are you on a three-phase supply?

No just 100A main fuse. The installing company for the second charger asked if we already had a charger as part of their pre-install survey, so nothing hidden. Installation certs issued so above board as far as I know.

There's a current (excuse the pun) thread on SpeakEV where the householder is being told to take the second charger out.

Something about the DNO need to give specific permission for a second charger, which they did, but only because they didn't know about the first charger as the installer (Octopus) hadn't told them. Now they know there's two they've said he can't have two chargers on a single phase supply.

[Rough101]

You need to advise the DNO usually via ENA, a second charger or an existing heat pump will prompt a DNO referral.

They ll be load balancing anyway, so would slow the charge, the deafult these days is a max draw of 60A on a100A fuse (SPN) before load balancing occurs for automatic approval.

Energy company won’t know you’re charging two cars on one charger even on an ‘intelligent’ tariff as long as it’s the charger that’s the registered compatible device and not the car.

A pal uses a Tesla walll box, his Model Y is registered as the intelligent vehicle at 7p, his wife’s EQC charged at 8p as it’s not registered (not compatible, nor is the wall box) as the energy company dont know what’s connected if unregistered and just provide a 5 hour off peak window.

Edited by Rough101 on Wednesday 28th May 11:36

[ian_c_uk]

If you use a compatible charger that links to Octopus, not only can you charge multiple cars today, but you also have some protection against new cars that may not be (immediately) added to the direct API.

We have an Ohme Home Pro linked to Octopus, which was great even when I had one EV as the Genesis was slow to be added (despite the Ioniq 5 and EV6 brethren having direct integration)

We now have two cars, and as long as you don't need to charge both every night, it works really well.

[JQ]

We have 2 EV's and both are registered with Intelligent Octopus. Just need to switch the car on the app when connecting. Although my wife regularly doesn't and it still charges.

[Sheepshanks]

ian_c_uk said:

If you use a compatible charger that links to Octopus, not only can you charge multiple cars today, but you also have some protection against new cars that may not be (immediately) added to the direct API.

We have an Ohme Home Pro linked to Octopus, which was great even when I had one EV as the Genesis was slow to be added (despite the Ioniq 5 and EV6 brethren having direct integration)

We now have two cars, and as long as you don't need to charge both every night, it works really well.

I don't think the Hyundai API to Octopus works at all at the moment.

We were advised not to even try and connect the car using the car's app - the Ohme knows about it, but only so it knows the battery size, you could put anything in there. If anything's going to go wrong in the charging process, it's the communication to the car's app that seems to the most trouble, so best to take it out of the loop.

[TheRainMaker]

Yep, I have given up on the i3 and Octopus, It's total rubbish, to be honest.

[hantsxlg]

We had a second 32a charger fitted by octopus recently. It took a while as needed dno to come out and check the 100a fuse. The 2nd charger has a current sensor on the main power tail coming in to the house and will throttle it self if total draw is too high. No issues so far on occasions where both cars charging at once..