[Paddy]

Hi all

I am new to both this forum and EVs in general. My Mini Electric arrived last Wednesday and am loving it so far. I have been charging using the dealer-supplied 3 pin cable so far, with the current lock down I'm not exactly going very far at the moment.

I am moving my energy provider to Octopus Agile to take advantage of their variable pricing. I'm planning to get an OHME smart charger which should be able to delay charging to match the lower Agile tariff periods.

Does the Mini support delayed charging managed by a smart charger? I've read that some cars like the MG go to sleep so won't charge when the current becomes available. My thinking is to set the Mini to Charge Immediately and manage the schedule through the OHME app - is that the best approach?

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[EricM]

Why not just ask Ohme if they have any customers using their kit with a Mini EV. And if it turns out that you'd be the first (which seems unlikely) ask them for a guarantee that you can return it if it doesn't work

 

[pcfarrar]

Does the Mini support delayed charging managed by a smart charger? I've read that some cars like the MG go to sleep so won't charge when the current becomes available. My thinking is to set the Mini to Charge Immediately and manage the schedule through the OHME app - is that the best approach?

Worked fine on my Mini electric when I set a delayed charge on my charger.

 

[steveharvey2001]

Does anyone know if the Ohme has access to the MINI Electric API so that it can see the state of the battery during the charging, rather that trying to guesstimate it.

I have just started using a 32A Ohme smart wall-box and when I chose the "connect to car" option in the Ohme app, I get messages that say "connected to car" and "nice Mini!" but the Ohme app does not show me the state of charge in the car battery, which should be essential for any smart scheme that is claiming to keep to specific minimum battery charge status.

I was not asked for any API key, so I am suspecting that this connection was not actually made.

When the batter is getting full, the Ohme app sends messages that the power has reduced and that the battery "may be full"..

Does the type 2 AC charging interface allow the EVSE to see the battery charge level or is that only a feature of DC fast charging?

 

[electricdriver]

Does anyone know if the Ohme has access to the MINI Electric API so that it can see the state of the battery during the charging, rather that trying to guesstimate it.

I have just started using a 32A Ohme smart wall-box and when I chose the "connect to car" option in the Ohme app, I get messages that say "connected to car" and "nice Mini!" but the Ohme app does not show me the state of charge in the car battery, which should be essential for any smart scheme that is claiming to keep to specific minimum battery charge status.

I was not asked for any API key, so I am suspecting that this connection was not actually made.

When the batter is getting full, the Ohme app sends messages that the power has reduced and that the battery "may be full"..

Does the type 2 AC charging interface allow the EVSE to see the battery charge level or is that only a feature of DC fast charging?

The Type 2 connection won't allow the Ohme to read the car's state of charge. The only route to do this is by Ohme accessing the car online, and only some cars are currently set up to do this. Sounds like the Mini isn't one of them. There's a list of supported vehicles at Ohme's website. May be worth emailing them to ask if or when yours will be supported, they are generally quite responsive...although no guarantee that it will happen.

 

[Paddy]

Does anyone know if the Ohme has access to the MINI Electric API so that it can see the state of the battery during the charging, rather that trying to guesstimate it.

I have just started using a 32A Ohme smart wall-box and when I chose the "connect to car" option in the Ohme app, I get messages that say "connected to car" and "nice Mini!" but the Ohme app does not show me the state of charge in the car battery, which should be essential for any smart scheme that is claiming to keep to specific minimum battery charge status.

I was not asked for any API key, so I am suspecting that this connection was not actually made.

When the batter is getting full, the Ohme app sends messages that the power has reduced and that the battery "may be full"..

Does the type 2 AC charging interface allow the EVSE to see the battery charge level or is that only a feature of DC fast charging?

Hi

I had my Ohme charger installed last week and there is no API link between it and the Mini at the moment. It would be worth contacting them to lobby for them to add the Mini.

I'm now on Octopus Go. I have connected this tariff to the Ohme and set a cap of 5p per kwhr so it only charges between 00:30 and 04:30. I set the Ohme schedule to add 75 miles and just plug it in and forget about it. The charging does normally stop before the 75 miles is added as the battery is full. The Mini is able to start charging when the Ohme schedule kicks in, so largely working ok.

Cheers

Paddy

 

[steveharvey2001]

Hi

I had my Ohme charger installed last week and there is no API link between it and the Mini at the moment. It would be worth contacting them to lobby for them to add the Mini.

I'm now on Octopus Go. I have connected this tariff to the Ohme and set a cap of 5p per kwhr so it only charges between 00:30 and 04:30. I set the Ohme schedule to add 75 miles and just plug it in and forget about it. The charging does normally stop before the 75 miles is added as the battery is full. The Mini is able to start charging when the Ohme schedule kicks in, so largely working ok.

Cheers

Paddy

I received the following reply from Ohme today:

"Hi Steve,

Thanks for getting in touch.

We are not yet integrated with the MINI API, but our Dev Team are working on it.

You will still be able to benefit from all of Ohme's smart charging capabilities but without API support, using Ohme is slightly different. Instead of using Charge Schedules to specify what state of charge you would like the battery to be in at the end of the charge session, you will need to create Charge Schedules that specify how many miles you would like to add to the current range. So if your weekday commute is 50 miles, then you could create a Charge Schedule which says “add 50 miles range by 7am on weekdays”.

When using Ohme without an API, it is quite common for the car to become “full” halfway through a charge session, and Ohme may send an alert to tell you that the car is not charging as expected.



Best wishes,
Lily

Lily Christoforou
[email protected] | "

 

[steveharvey2001]

After over a year of waiting, I had a message from Ohme telling me that the Ohme charger now has integration with the Mini API working.

"It's the announcement you've all been waiting for... MINI integration is now live!
Head to 'Manage my EV' to re-select your car and connect your MINI account.
This will allow Ohme access to your car's state of charge for more precise charging"

My Ohme app now shows my SoC live !

This should hopefully allow me to set a battery SoC percentage target next time rather than guessing how many miles range to add and unnecessarily charging to 100% each time.

Obviously I am not still on Agile but on Go! ;-)

 

[carussell]

I can confirm that the Intelligent Octopus tariff does indeed work with our Mini. We switched to Octopus at the beginning of this month and after our smart meter connected to them we were able to run a test charge through the Ohme charger. I spoke to them about moving to Intelligent and it’s happened this morning. Rate is fixed for 12 months at 40/7.5p which, in the scheme of things, seems quite reasonable now!