Off Peak Charging - could Porsche have made it any more difficult!

[tophamn]

There is a goal conflict. I think that whenever and however you program charging windows, you cannot then also expect a target charge...

Note the word "preferred" in Porsche's terminology "preferred charging window" - the car will happily charge outside this window if it needs to to achieve the required charge level by the set departure time.

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[ovonrein]

If [the target charge of a Timer] can't be reached within the window ... then the charging process will restart after 30 mins.

I think the "within the window" is irrelevant. When you connect the EVSE, the BMS senses the available power and calculates backwards from 7am when it needs to start charging. (It may be - I have not observed this - that when the target charge can be attained within the window, that the BMS calculates back from the end of the window. I don't believe so. The BMS' philosophy seems to be "Achieve the highest SOC as late as possible".) If that falls somewhere within the window, the user observes confused that the charging process does not start at the opening of the window. (There was a post like that 2 days ago.)

What intrigues me about your setup is the first bit, where the BMS tries to calculate how long before 7 am the charge process must start. But perhaps that calculation is triggered (and re-triggered) whenever there is a current change on the EVSE.

 

[ovonrein]

Note the word "preferred" in Porsche's terminology "preferred charging window" - the car will happily charge outside this window if it needs to to achieve the required charge level by the set departure time.

I completely concur. That is my observation too. But because that is so, the OP's ambition (to only charge during off-peak) must fail (in the presence of a Timer). Ditto likely ct4s (in the presence of a target SOC for Octopus - depends on whether their app gives greater priority to the window or the target.).

 

[ct4s]

1. Good - assuming Octopus recognises and can control it.
2. The time is irrelevant - set the time you want the car to be ready and Octopus will schedule charging wherever, all at the cheap rate (even outside the normal cheap window). By all means set the charge level somewhat more than you need but 100% is extreme, certainly every night. BTW, as an aside: Octopus only need to know what your car is so they know how big the battery is - and work out the kWh required from your requested %.
3. In "the Porsche app" - where? Profile? Timer? Both?
4. That seems sensible. Note that if your EVSE (wall box) is being controlled by Octopus neither Octopus nor the wall box have any idea (a) what car is connected nor (b) what the car's state of charge is. See my note #2 above: when you plug the Kia in Octopus only see "a car" and will schedule the requested % based on the Porsche as that's the car it knows about.

To come back to your question about cheap electricity: you'll get the cheap rate, for ALL your electricity (house and car) during the scheduled charging periods as shown in the Octopus app. Do, however, note the rules about 'gaming' the system: if you regularly ask for way more charge than the car actually takes, just to get cheap electricity for your house, Octopus reserve the right to remove you from the Intelligent Go tariff.

Back to the OP, charging is a bloody mess

For me it works, at least in so much as each EV always gets to the desired charge (set in each EV's app) each morning.
So, even though the Octo app is set to 99%, the car stops the charge at whatever value is set in the corresponding car's app. Which is typically 70 or 80%.
So, if the Kia is set to 90% for a long drive and the Porsche is set to 70%, then enough kW's are sent to the Kia to get to the required 90%.
If I have to tell my wife that each time she plugs in that she needs to set the target charge in the Octo app and the Kia app, she will give up and want to go back to a diesel!

Just noticed that Kia is now supported by Octo. I've emailed then to ask for their charging advice for multiple EVs. Fingers crossed I get a positive reply.

 

[SWTaycanSTgts]

Has something changed with the app very recently? I collected my new 2025 GTS a few days ago and found this thread after struggling to setup basic timed charging. However I cannot find any options relating to ‘profiles’ after looking for an hour now on the app, here and online in general.
Has the app been updated perhaps?

 

[ovonrein]

Unchanged here. (There are buttons for Overview/Timers/Profiles across the top of the Charging screen.) Does any Comms work between car and phone? That is, are you logged in and can eg unlock the car? Can you find Profiles in PCM in car?

 

[HellNo]

New Taycan Turbo S owner here coming from the Tesla ecosystem and I too was very confused with the Porsche charging setup. After a few nights of trial and error I think I’ve finally sussed it.

I have Octopus Intelligent Go, a Tesla Wall Charger and still have a Tesla Model 3 Performance which is configured with Octopus.

in my situation I don’t commute so don’t need to leave at any specific time, but I would like 85% charge so the car is ready to go in case the mood strikes. Sometime I have to do early morning trips to visit clients, in which case I do have a target departure time and want 100%.

Here is what works for me:

General Profile [enabled]: left as standard - 85%/optimised charging.

Home Profile [enabled]: Location set to home/25%/Preferred charging period/23:30-5:30.

Timer 1 [enabled]: 9AM/Repeat all week/Climate disabled/Charge enabled/85%.

Timer 2 [disabled]: 9AM/Repeat disabled/Climate enabled/Charge enabled/100%.

This setup gives me 85% ready to go every day, and I’ve checked the Octopus app and can see that Porsche is doing the majority of its charging within my preferred window, only falling out of it if my car is lower than can be charged within the 6 hour window. It also leaves it as late into that window as necessary, which is great.

You can see in the attached screenshot that Porsche started my charge around 2:30am until sometime into 5am, because my car was around 50-60% charged when I plugged in, which is ideal behaviour for me.

Then if I need an early start, I disable Timer 1, enable Timer 2 and set the departure time on Timer 2 to whatever time I need to leave.

Note: I have a feeling I could leave Timer 1 enabled and this would still work, but I haven’t fully tested it yet.

 

[SWTaycanSTgts]

I cannot find any where on the app or PCM in relation to profiles. I’m quite stumped but assume I must be doing something wrong. Images attached for reference.
The app is connected to the car and I’ve been using it to control various things, successfully, all week.

 

[ovonrein]

How funky. The BMS on your MY25 is different to my MY22 In that you appear to have the ability to set the target charge level via a slider. But you have no Profiles any longer. Does the Charging section of your manual still mention charging Profiles? In the absence of a programmable timer on board, you would have to fall back on programming the charging window via your charger. Which is what a lot of folk do anyway.

 

[W1NGE]

How funky. The BMS on your MY25 is different to my MY22 In that you appear to have the ability to set the target charge level via a slider. But you have no Profiles any longer. Does the Charging section of your manual still mention charging Profiles? In the absence of a programmable timer on board, you would have to fall back on programming the charging window via your charger. Which is what a lot of folk do anyway.

Profiles aren't part of MY25 onwards. Slider was introduced as part of MY25 updates. Various other enhancements to the charging process and capabilities also added.

 

[W1NGE]

I cannot find any where on the app or PCM in relation to profiles. I’m quite stumped but assume I must be doing something wrong. Images attached for reference.
The app is connected to the car and I’ve been using it to control various things, successfully, all week.

Removed for MY25 (J1.2) onwards.

 

[SWTaycanSTgts]

Also cannot seem to get blind sport monitoring to function, or find it, and active cruise control. Nothing in the manual on the app corresponds correctly. Almost seems as if the car doesn’t have them.

 

[W1NGE]

Also cannot seem to get blind sport monitoring to function, or find it, and active cruise control. Nothing in the manual on the app corresponds correctly. Almost seems as if the car doesn’t have them.

Various sections are missing from the online Owner's Manual.

On PCM select Car then Assistance then Advanced.

Depending on options fitted to the car there are short cuts on the steering wheel stalk to control some of the Adaptive controls and speed limit controls.

Obviously the car must have these options for the menu items to be displayed.

 

[ovonrein]

And the ability to program a charging window was lost?

 

[AutoX]

The problem I have with porsche's implementation is that they assume that everyone have a set work schedule, and leave at the same time every week. I have a very variable work schedule, some days I leave at 3 in the morning, other days it's 2 pm or 6 pm or anytime in between. I just want the car to start charging when I plug it in if it's during my off peak hours. If I need to charge it during the on peak hours, then I'll manually start the charging myself.

My tesla and MachE does this easily. They have slider for the max chage, and a time window for when to charge. Couldn't be simpler. In addition, they have an option if you want to be done charging by a certain time. But I really only use this option if I need to charge to 100% as there is no detriment effect to the battery to keep the car charged at 85%.

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