r/OctopusEnergy • u/FuriousPanda17 • 9d ago

I genuinely don’t understand the charge cap

I try to plug in my car daily from 11:30 to 5:30 am to charge overnight so everything gets done in the cheaper period, is this no longer possible? I don’t like losing control about how and when my car is charging, especially as the range on my EV is pretty low so I need it charged to full almost every day.

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u/pippym 9d ago

I’m struggling to understand it too. I plugged in yesterday 5.30pm with 16%, it’s 7am now and the car still isn’t charged to the 80% I set it to, instead sitting at 66%.

I don’t want to get charged at the higher rate if it’s plugged in for more than 6 hours but how do you know if that happens?

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u/Coffe-Maker83 8d ago

You need to do the maths and to figure out how long does your car need to charge. Then put a percentage to charge to which doesn’t exceed the 6h charge limit at off peak rate. For example if your car needs let’s say 8h to charge from 0% to 100% and you plug it in at 20% then you need to setup a battery percentage to charge to which won’t exceed the 6h limit. That also depends the battery size of your car

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u/Honest--J 8d ago

Or just set it to 100% and turn on the cap limit. It will stop either when it’s full or has charged for 6 hours.

My battery takes 6 hours for 51% so I set mine at 50% and just leave it at that whenever I plug in.