1st EV - should we move to Octopus?

[AudiSport]

We have recently picked up our first EV, an Audi Q4 eTron, and have an Ohme charger being fitted tomorrow.

The popular view from those we have spoken to is that we should now move from our current provider British Gas to Octopus Energy. We do not have any solar panels, and my wife will be doing around 17k miles per year in the Q4.

Does anyone have any input or advice on this? Anything I should know / consider before I contact them, and any special deals I should look for?

Thanks in advance for any input

[Rough101]

How much pence per kWh are they on an EV tariff?

If there is only a penny in it, and 5 hours a day works, I’d stay on that, the intelligent thing is a total faff.

[ScoobyChris]

Octopus used to be the default choice and their Intelligent Go tariff is pretty good, but it seems a few more providers are now offering attractive EV tariffs (I was recommended EON) so worth shopping around and crunching the numbers. If you have a SMETS2 smart meter, swapping providers is relatively painless!

Chris

[PushedDover]

We have a Tesla Y. And circa 16,000 mi a year. (and charge 95% of the time at home)

now with Octopus we have day time 26.37p per kWh, night 8.10p per kWh, standing charge 55.30p/day (£201.86/year)

Now, does the night time charging make difference?

I noticed a few months back that our 'night time rate' was not active. so all charging and other evening electricity (washing machines, etc) was at full rates.

I rang them up and queried - the delta in haveing and not havein gthe night time rate, they refunded.
In 18 months the difference was £2,100.


YMMV

[J2daG1990]

British Gas do an EV tariff you can just switch to which gives 7.9p per kWh between 12am-5am - https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/gas-and-electr...

Octopus Energy's EV Tariff I think offers 7p per KWh off-peak, so its whether you think it's worth going through the hassle of switching to save your .9p per kWh.

This is of course presuming you would only charge the car overnight to take advantage of the cheaper rate.

[SteBrown91]

Rough101 said:

How much pence per kWh are they on an EV tariff?

If there is only a penny in it, and 5 hours a day works, I’d stay on that, the intelligent thing is a total faff.

Been on IOG for about 10 months now and never had any real "faff".

Plug car into my Zappi, Zappi tells Octopus.

I then open the Octopus app and set the charge amount (roughly) and the time I want to leave for the next morning.

Octopus and the charger do the rest.

Car is fully charged the next morning, and during the extra periods IOG gives me through the evening the house gets the same 7p rate.

Our average cost per KW is around the 12-13p mark.

[RotorRambler]

I have Ohme charger & Octopus Intelligent Go, no faff at all.
Already had smart meter up & running from previous supplier.
Zero problems since i purchased EV last September.
I don’t fully integrate the car.
Say my car is 30%, I tell it to add 50% to reach 80% by day 0700 the next day.
It allocates sessions to be ready by then.

Mine is 7p Kwh overnight (or the whole house is if it chooses to charge outside of that)
I do set my white appliances to go on overnight.
My average is also around 13p Kwh for the whole house, without trying hard.

I’d recommend the combination (also a free Nero or Greggs coffee weekly!)

[MarkT17]

Had Octopus IO, loved it, until they pulled the plug on the Jaaag iPace.

Hissy fit, went to British Gas, as having an Alfen/Hive wall charger meant sub 5p kWh.

This month, as soon as I was able to (12 months since switching to BG), I've gone back to Octopus (this time on normal Go) - the costs even with BG's reduced kWh are still very slightly cheaper on Octopus. And I don't have to deal with BG anymore thank the frickin lord, their CS is absolutely horrendous, and their billing is 'whenever they can be arsed generating a PDF you can barely read'.

[Pistonheadsdicoverer]

Might be just a a bug BUT, twice over the past year I've got them to refund random rogue surcharges (e.g. getting charge at full rate because the system failed to stop the car from charging outside the 6 hour window). You may need to check from to time, which I do. I use X.com to communicate with them and they're pretty quick to reply and refund.

[croyde]

Can one get the EV rate evening you don't have an EV.

Would be bloody useful to have 7p per kwh, rather than 25p.

[ScoobyChris]

Not sure how they check if you have an “unsupported” EV on a granny charger other than usage patterns.

Chris

[Sheepshanks]

AudiSport said:

We have recently picked up our first EV, an Audi Q4 eTron, and have an Ohme charger being fitted tomorrow.

The popular view from those we have spoken to is that we should now move from our current provider British Gas to Octopus Energy. We do not have any solar panels, and my wife will be doing around 17k miles per year in the Q4.

Does anyone have any input or advice on this? Anything I should know / consider before I contact them, and any special deals I should look for?

Thanks in advance for any input

With that mileage, and the poorish efficiency (including charging losses) of the Audi, have a look at Octopus Drive Pack.

My daughter got in on the initial £20/mth (it's £30 now) offer - she'll be spending less per year on electricity than she was per month on petrol.

Some people reckon they load shift stuff to take advantange of IOG but that wouldn't really work for her, and they've tightened up on giving charging slots during the day time. I think on IOG the non-charging cost is slightly dearer than their other tariffs anyway, so that's a bit of a disadvantage to IOG.

Edited by Sheepshanks on Tuesday 27th May 19:43

[Sheepshanks]

ScoobyChris said:

Not sure how they check if you have an “unsupported” EV on a granny charger other than usage patterns.

Chris

I don't think you'd be able to do the test charge needed during set up for Octopus to pick up and enable IOG?

[plfrench]

I’d recommend having a look at Ovo. There isn’t an EV tariff, just a bolt on called anytime. It doesn’t affect the household rate (I’m on 21.63p/kWh and 53.34p/day standing charge), and is 7p/kWh for all EV charging.

[ScoobyChris]

Sheepshanks said:

I don't think you'd be able to do the test charge needed during set up for Octopus to pick up and enable IOG?

I think we were talking about the regular OG?

Chris

[Sheepshanks]

ScoobyChris said:

I think we were talking about the regular OG?

Chris

I have seen people say they signed up for that without any checks. I suppose the danger is it breaches Octopus's terms (if you don't use it for EV charging) so they might bill you at normal rates.

[MondeoMan1981]

I'm om day 8 with an EV and we are having our Ohme Home Pro installed this week.

Going to stay with British Gas for now, as the 7.9p rate for 5 hours should be enough for me most of the time.


Once my exit fee period runs out I'll reconsider.

[sixor8]

I was on Octopus for over 12 months. Went up from 4 hrs per night to 5 hours last Autumn. I only used a granny charger, and the Honda eNy1 is not compatible with Intelligent Go anyway unless I got a home charger. But for only 6k miles per year, it isn't worth the expense. The 'day' rate is a bit higher than the normal tariff of course.

However, I've switched to EON because it's 7 hours per night at 6.7p (inc VAT). The day rate is a bit peaky at 27.7p but only 1p per kWh more. Their terms also say you must have an EV and I suppose the usage trend indicates it, but I don't know how they'd know if I hadn't. It is ALL supply from 00:00 to 07;00.

[Gone fishing]

croyde said:

Can one get the EV rate evening you don't have an EV.

Would be bloody useful to have 7p per kwh, rather than 25p.

No, you need an EV and to plug it in at home about once a month or so. It doesn’t have to be your EV though, just not one it knows about.

IOG can often give you extra cheap rate hours, especially at this time of year. We plugged in at 4 pm the other day and we had cheap rate from then until the next morning. The whole house gets it too. The stupid thing is our charger has a schedule so it won’t start until 11:30 anyway so the house hit the benefit without the car even charging.

If you do move, tap up any existing IOG customer for a code to split £100, either someone you know or anyone on here who has been helpful.

[AudiSport]

Sheepshanks said:

AudiSport said:

We have recently picked up our first EV, an Audi Q4 eTron, and have an Ohme charger being fitted tomorrow.

The popular view from those we have spoken to is that we should now move from our current provider British Gas to Octopus Energy. We do not have any solar panels, and my wife will be doing around 17k miles per year in the Q4.

Does anyone have any input or advice on this? Anything I should know / consider before I contact them, and any special deals I should look for?

Thanks in advance for any input

With that mileage, and the poorish efficiency (including charging losses) of the Audi, have a look at Octopus Drive Pack.

My daughter got in on the initial £20/mth (it's £30 now) offer - she'll be spending less per year on electricity than she was per month on petrol.

Some people reckon they load shift stuff to take advantange of IOG but that wouldn't really work for her, and they've tightened up on giving charging slots during the day time. I think on IOG the non-charging cost is slightly dearer than their other tariffs anyway, so that's a bit of a disadvantage to IOG.

Edited by Sheepshanks on Tuesday 27th May 19:43

Yes, I was just looking at this option on the OE website, thinking the same, for £30 a month my wife can just charge whenever she wants, every day, which seems great value compared to the £400 a month she was spending on diesel. Unless I’m missing something?