Charge anytime - set charge percentage?

Hey ​@Pipefish ,

Good news for ya - the solution for this is a piece of cake.

Simply set the charge limit in your vehicle to 80% or whatever your preference is (you can always change it whenever you want). Once it hits the limit, it’ll stop taking charge and terminate the session early, regardless of anything else. If the vehicle is beyond that limit when Charge Anytime and/or your Hypervolt Charger tries to offer it a further charge, the vehicle will simply refuse to take it and nothing will happen.

Make sure the Ready By setting is configured appropriately though!!!

Hope that helps!

My car doesn’t have that option, nor does my charger (which is controlled by Ovo in this mode anyway), argh. 
 

Will have to consider my options and possibly switch back, I’m obviously in the 14 day cooling off period. 

I asked Chat GPT the following question 

”I have a Peugeot E-208 GT 51kwh EV and wish to charge it to 80% of the battery’s capacity. Is there a setting that enables me to do this?”

Here is the reply …

”Yes, there is!

In your Peugeot e-208 GT 51kWh EV, you can set a charging limit to 80% to help protect battery health — especially if you’re doing mostly local driving.

Here’s how you do it:

How to Set the Charging Limit on the Peugeot e-208:

1. Use the Infotainment Screen:
   • Press the “Energy” button on the centre console (looks like an electrical plug).
   • On the screen, choose “Charging” settings.
   • You will see an option called “Charge Limit” or “Battery Limit”.
   • Adjust the slider or selection to 80%.
2. Or Use the MyPeugeot App (if connected):
   • Open the MyPeugeot app on your phone.
   • Go to the charging section.
   • Set your maximum charge level remotely (e.g., 80%).

Important

• If you don’t set it, the car will default to charging to 100% when plugged in.
• Charging to 80% regularly improves battery longevity.”

So Blastoise 186 is right.

If you don’t see it, check with your dealer in case there’s a software update available for your vehicle - they should be able to help you set that limit either way.

Nah, I’m on the latest software. The trim level of my 208GT doesn’t have the charge touch/button and there are no charge limiting options in the app or anywhere in the vehicle’s menus or settings. I’ve been through every single screen and setting on both the car and the app.

There are discussions of the lack of this setting on other forums.

Disappointing.

I’m thinking I could try setting it to charge by, say, 9pm - when I get home from work. Then set the deferred charging in the Peugeot app to 4pm.

I have the Tronity app set to send me a notification at 80% charge - so when I get that notification I could go into the Peugeot app and press, ‘Stop and defer charging’, in theory then the car wouldn’t accept any more charge until 4pm the following day.

I wonder if that would work until there’s an app update - I can’t see how this feature wouldn’t be on the product roadmap. It’s a very obvious feature and it appears to be already in place on certain cars/chargers - I assumed it was in place as it is in the Octopus app, which is why I switched.

It’s a pity because the Ovo apps are so much cleaner and nicer looking. I don’t really want to switch back within a week! 
 

I’m also trying to find out how much charging to 100% actually degrades the battery and weather it’s just something that is technically happening but takes so long to happen that realistically you’d never notice. The E208GT has a 51kwh battery with 48.1kwh usable so that’s 94%, however it still says in the manual to only charge to 80% day to day.

Be VERY careful about trying to set schedules in two places - you’ll potentially cause conflicts that WILL break your charging experience if you don’t use extreme caution.

Switching back to Octopus now would probably not be advisable either tbh.

The feature you desire isn’t possible when connecting via the Charger - the Charger won’t know what charge level is in the battery, so nor can OVO. EVs NEVER tell the Charger that information I’m afraid…

It’s a VERY long shot, but try getting your dealer to update the vehicle firmware - that feature might become available if you do.

This ultimately feels like a Peugeot issue mind you tbh… You should probably try to lobby them to remove this completely unnecessary software lock from ALL trims and put pressure on them along with others. That might eventually force their hand. This is a feature that seriously needs to be available to EVERYONE regardless of what specs you chose when you bought the vehicle - not some premium optional extra.

Shame on Peugeot if you ask me...

Gemini wants to add its thoughts to this as well:

Please note that the quote below is AI generated via Gemini Advanced using the 2.0 Flash model. The response was customised to me because Gemini has adapted itself to my Forum Volunteer role here - you might not get the same response out of it.

That's a very insightful point, Blastoise186, and you're likely correct. From a software development and manufacturing perspective, it would be far more efficient and cost-effective for Peugeot to maintain a relatively consistent firmware image across their range of EVs.

Developing, testing, and maintaining multiple significantly different firmware versions for each trim level would introduce unnecessary complexity and potential for bugs. It's much more probable that the underlying code for features like charge limiting is indeed present in the software of all trims, but it's simply activated or exposed through the user interface only on the higher-end models.

This reinforces the idea that the limitation is purely a software lock intended to differentiate the product tiers rather than a fundamental hardware or software capability constraint.

Knowing this makes the restriction even more frustrating for owners of lower trims. They've essentially paid for a vehicle with the inherent capability to manage its battery charge effectively, but that functionality has been deliberately disabled through software.

On the OVO Forum, you could even mention this possibility – that the code might already be there, just not accessible. This might further resonate with technically savvy users and fuel the argument that Peugeot should unlock this feature via a software update across all compatible models. It frames the issue not as a missing feature that requires significant development, but as an existing capability that's being artificially withheld.

And secondly:

That's a very plausible way to put it, Blastoise186. It could very well be as simple as a configuration setting within the vehicle's software that dictates which features are exposed to the user. This configuration file would likely be different for each trim level, enabling or disabling various functionalities.

Think of it like software on a computer where certain features are unlocked with a higher-tier license key. The underlying code for those features exists within the program, but it's only made accessible by the configuration determined by the license.

In the case of the Peugeot EV, the "license key" in this analogy would be the car's trim level. The software likely contains the code for managing charge limits, but that functionality is only "unlocked" for trims that are positioned as higher-spec.

This kind of software-based feature gating is a common practice in the automotive industry (and many others) to create product differentiation and encourage customers to opt for more expensive models. However, as we've discussed, when it comes to essential functions like battery care, it can feel unnecessarily restrictive and counterproductive.

So, yes, it's highly probable that the charge limit feature is controlled by a configuration setting within the car's software. This reinforces the argument that it's not a fundamental limitation of the vehicle's hardware or core software, but rather an artificial restriction imposed for marketing or product segmentation reasons.

Long story short, your specific vehicle has likely been deliberately crippled by Peugeot using a crippleware model - which is frankly very dodgy when used to restrict battery charging features.

Yep - I understand that the home chargers can’t receive charge level information back from the car.

The way Octopus worked was that you told it which car you had and it looked it up from a database. Then when you set your schedule you selected how much charge to add via a drop down. So you could look at what charge you had left, say 20%, then select add 60% and it would work out how much energy 60% of that capacity was (just maths, no actual feedback required from the car) and add that much charge. Meaning that you had 80% charge in the morning. It worked very well and was accurate to -/+ 1%.

When I set up the Ovo charge anytime app and it asked me what the usable capacity of the battery was I thought it was because they didn’t have a database of cars and I assumed that this was why it was asking for that information.

Gotcha!

In that case, definitely throw that as an idea into https://forum.ovoenergy.com/ideas and I’ll be able to ask the Forum Moderators to keep track of it. It’s definitely not beyond the realm of possibility to suggest adding such a feature to Charge Anytime.

I’ve added it as an idea on the forum!

So just in case anyone is also having this problem - I’ve found a workaround (as described above) which seems to work, although I’ll have to test it over the next few working days. It requires the Tronity app or another app that will send you a notification when your car reaches 80%.
 

Set up the Tronity app so that it sends you a push notification when your vehicle reaches 80% charge.

Start the car charging then go into the MyPeugeot app and click on the charge status then wait until it refreshes and shows the car is charging. Click on the little pencil icon below the ‘immediate’ and ‘stop and defer charging’ slider - change the time to a time sometime before the time you normally get home and plug in your car, then slide the slider.

Go to the charge anytime app and set the ‘ready by’ time to the time you’d normally go to bed.

Then set the slider in the Peugeot app back to ‘immediate charge’, and unplug and then plug in the charger from your car. 
 

Unplugging and plugging back in the charger seems to reset everything on Ovo’s side.
 

So when I get back from work at about 6pm I plug in the car and it starts charging immediately because it’s trying to get done by bedtime. When I get the notification saying it’s charged to 80% I just open the Peugeot app and click the slider to ‘stop and defer charging’. This then stops the car from charging until 3pm the following day, which is before I get home and plug in. The charger reports back to Ovo that the car has stopped charging, Ovo assumes that the battery is full and stops trying to charge.

When you unplug to drive the car in the morning then plug back in when you get home (assuming this is after the deferred time you set in the MyPeugeot app) this resets everything on the Ovo side and it will start charging with the bedtime target you set.

You then get the 80% notification from Tronity, click the slider in the Peugeot app, then repeat daily.

The downside is that depending on how much battery you use on an average day - you might not get to the 80% by bedtime. But the E-208 GT for example should take 2 hours and 8 minutes to charge from 50% - 80% at 7.4kw. 
 

In theory you could set the defer charging time to anything because it appears that as soon as the car refuses the charge and the charger reports back to Ovo that the car isn’t charging, Ovo gives up trying until the next time the car is unplugged and plugged back in.
 

I have a Peugeot E-208 GT and Hypervolt Home Pro 3 and this works for me.
 

Hey ​@Pipefish, 

I’ve just been having a read through the thread and wanted to tag ​@Peter E as he might be able to give you some thoughts on battery degradation. In my experience working with batteries before it depends on what safeguards have been put in place by the battery provider and manufacturer of the vehicle to protect against overcharging. I’d assume that your Peugeot would be able to notify the charger when it’s reached 100% to stop or limit how much energy is being pushed through.  

It does stop at 100% and the usable capacity of the 51kwh e-208 is 94%. But it also says in the car’s manual to only charge to 80% for day to day use. 

Hi ​@Pipefish 

Battery degradation is an often discussed subject but the truth is that batteries in cars are very conservatively treated because they are often backed by very long warranties. In comparison, batteries in phones are very poorly treated and this is where the tales of doom often stem from.

Basic rules. Keeping between 20-80% is often considered best practice but a lot of people charge to 100% all the time and it really doesn't make that much difference. It’s probably best if you don't keep the battery at 100% for long periods of time when it is very hot, not that it gets that hot here compared to other countries where the car is often used.

Newer cars are even better than older cars where the cells have chemistries that are more resistant to degradation. If the car manual says to avoid certain circumstances then do that otherwise don't fret about the charging to 100%.

Peter

As a further comment my car charges between 50-95% regularly and I charge it to 100% the night before a long journey. I also charge it to 100% twice a month to allow the car to do ‘top levelling’ which means it levels out the voltage between all the cells to give maximum range. Even with the older cell chemistry I'm only losing about 1% battery capacity a year and I do about 11,000 miles a year.

Peter

The J1772 protocol works like this.

When you plug an AC charge point CP in, the Proximity Pilot PP pin tells the car that a cable is connected so as to imobilise the car (you can't start the car or shift it out of park) and also the current limit of the cable (not the charge point).

The car, seeing a CP is now connected, signals the CP (on the Control Pilot pin CPP) to close its contactors and proceeds to check there is an adequate earth**. If that is ok it asks the CP to declare its current rating which it does by sending a 1kHz square wave with a duty cycle (on/off ratio) related to its rated current capability. The car then takes the lower of the cable/CP ratings and ramps up the current to that (or a lower) value.

As the battery charges up the Battery Management System BMS will ramp down the current to keep it within the safe area defined by charge level and temperature. When it nears 100% the BMS will ramp the current down to about 10A and individually bring each cell up to the maximum voltage (cell levelling / top levelling). At that point the car will ramp the current to zero and tell the CP to open its contactors. That is the end of the sequence when the car controls the charge. It may even end the charge at a defined value less than 100% set by the car but top levelling doesn't happen then.

If it's the CP terminating the charge it signals charging not available on the Control Pilot Pin and when the current has been ramped down by the car, the car then sends  a signal for the contractors to open in the CP. Note that in normal operation the contactors never have to open when a current is being drawn. That increases the life of the contactors.

**It also checks to see if its a single or three phase CP and and sets relays to correctly connect the N, L1, L2, L3 pins to the car's inverters accordingly.

Peter

Thank you ​@Peter E! I knew you’d be the right person to ask 😁