Interesting, I was reading about Octopus's new intelligent tariff for EV owners just after I posted. They only work with Tesla right now (on the intelligent aspect) https://octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/ . But they are planning on others including VW. The tariff has a huge chunk of low cost (23...

I know you aren't a huge fan of road pricing, but it is the only scheme that's going to work. For differential electric pricing to work you would need all car manufacturers to agree a common standard and for every new manufacturer to implement it as well. While that might be possible if we were stil...

v2g or 'bi-directional' will be necessary to save the UK grid as renewables become more mainsteam. Smart ('intelligent') time-of-use pricing will also dominate, like it or not. These things are going to happen - soon. V2G is a technology specifically designed to reduce costs on the grid by transfer...

Surely the two points from this discussion are (1) everyone's figures will be different and (2) if you could just use your car battery instead of paying £5-8k for a power wall it would make financial sense for a lot more people? Back to the point of the thread :) Agree, car battery would be a great...

Depends how you look at it really. £5K in an interest account will earn about £4 per year at today's rates. As a battery you would save at least £300 on your electric bill. Much better rate of return and investment. Not seeing the logic there to be honest - spend £5k and see £300 back a year, or do...

Depends how you look at it really. £5K in an interest account will earn about £4 per year at today's rates. As a battery you would save at least £300 on your electric bill. Much better rate of return and investment.

Apparently all 77Kwh ID3's already have the hardware and just need the 3.0 software update and of course an approved wallbox. Could be a long wait... And why would you want it? You could save a packet offsetting your energy use. We have a powerwall that charges at £0.05Kwh using Octopus go cheap ra...

As SteveP55 pointed out, it is a great option for soaking up excess solar if you don't have a zappi.

The roof sidebars are the strongest part of the car and can support roof bars, just VW hasn't had system approved by TUV. If you open the doors and look under the roof sidebars you will see the two little indentation that show where the roof bars should be located.

I wouldn't have thought there would be much degradation, Tesla warrant the PW for 10 years and 77% capacity. VW warrant the battery for 8 years and something like 70-80% (can't remember exact number). So you will get battery degradation in normal use, but as you point out 10Kwh is hardly out of the ...

Apparently all 77Kwh ID3's already have the hardware and just need the 3.0 software update and of course an approved wallbox. Could be a long wait... And why would you want it? You could save a packet offsetting your energy use. We have a powerwall that charges at £0.05Kwh using Octopus go cheap rat...

You could always turn on Auxiliary Air Conditioning. It's in the mobile app so it's probably in the car somewhere as well. In Settings on the App if you enable it, the heating comes on as soon as you unlock the car, then no need to wait 220secs

Ours has been working perfectly until the last week or so. Locking always works, but unlocking is random. Changed keyfob battery and no difference. I guess it must be a temperature issue? There must be a proximity sensor in the door handle to make sure that the key is close enough to the door for it...

If VW ever fix the charge scheduling software I would plug in every time I get home. So the short answer for me is no, I don't plug in every day (or switch the charger on all the time) The long answer... What I want to do is only charge the car to 80% between the hours of 00:30 and 04:30. Sometimes ...

Hi, I have an issue with home charging. It has happened three times now. I'm using a Polar 7kW home charger, which has always worked fine. Charging initially seems fine, but after a while its starts to switch off and on again. The cycle takes a few second: terminating charging, waiting for a second...

If you have a Tesla power wall and solar, Octopus offer a Tesla plan which is about £0.11 per KWh for export and import. Tesla operate the batteries and octopus administer it. Tesla warrant the battery will retain 70% capacity after 10 years. Sounds like VW want to get into the energy business as we...

You keep quoting your personal experiences, the £250 service cost is what your brother pays, most ASHP service costs are in the region of £120 per year which is less than I have had to pay for my oil boiler (£90) plus tanks etc (£85). An external oil boiler (Worcester Bosch) is bigger than an equiva...

1. True, but grants help reduce the cost 2. Not true in 2020 gas was only 34.5%, this year it could be less. Gas prices will be going up more than electricity for a variety of reasons. Supply costs, Subsidies, potential carbon taxes etc etc. 3. Not really an issue and servicing costs depend who you ...

It is difficult to argue about individual cases. Installing ASHP in an old property without considering heat losses, heat delivery and overall system design is never going to work. I was simply pointing out the errors in your statement about the costs of heating with ASHP compared to say oil or gas....

Like others I am moving for environmental as well as practical reasons. Our house was built 6 years ago, it has UFH up and downstairs and masses of insulation as well as being thatched which also helps. We are EPC rated B so yes, modern builders can build houses that are energy efficient, giving the...