First EV - tell me about the basics

[Quattr04.]

Just ordered a Tesla M3 RWD as a company car, it will be my first EV and will need to organise a home charger and EV tarriff

From what I can see most of these give you cheap charging between midnight and 6am

What I m worried about is, I drive around 100 miles a day sometimes 200 a day and need to make sure the car is charged enough by the morning

If the cheap rate is 6 hours and I have a 7KWH charger, I work that out to be 42kwh of electric into the battery, which would be about 140 miles of range? Is this correct thinking? Most of the time that would be fine but if I arrived home with a low battery and then had 200 miles to do the next day would it be charged enough?

What charger and tarrif should I be looking at? I have a smart meter and currently on the British Gas standard tarrif

I get poor WiFi and phone signal on my drive, will this be an issue?

Edited by Quattr04. on Sunday 19th October 15:13

[arfur]

That 140 is about the max I can get in overnight in my EV using the BG cheap tariff.

I think you might want to look at Octopus - a colleague uses them and in addition to the cheap rate they seem to switch other rates in at other times so you get the "best deal" all the time. Not quite as cheap as the headline 6.9p from 12-6 but still way cheaper than a street charger

I dont need the Octopus one as my EV does not do huge miles so easily charges to full overnight

hth

[uktrailmonster]

Octopus Intelligent is a good tariff and usually flexible enough to give you extra low-rate charging time when needed. But even if you have to use a bit of peak rate charging, it’s still much cheaper than fuel.

[Discombobulate]

As above. You just let Octopus Intelligent know what charge you need, and by when and it will do the rest - normally all at cheaper rate (about a quarter of normal).

Even using "dumb" tariff like Octopus Go a Tesla should easily add 100 - 120 miles a night at cheap rate. Expect your car to add 20+ miles per hour. If you need more you will obviously pay standard rate.

Edited by Discombobulate on Sunday 19th October 19:10

[sixor8]

You can charge it whenever you want. Outside the overnight cheaper rates, you'd have to pay the standard rate, unless on an 'Intelligent' tariff from whoever, but at 27p per kWh, it'll be way cheaper than anything at a public charger, especially anywhere near a motorway!

[Road2Ruin]

Also, you will need a smart meter to use most of the off peak tarrifs.

[NDNDNDND]

Note that getting a Tesla will mean half your neighbours will assume you support fascism, and you may find people have carved swastikas into your car's paintwork.

[Sheepshanks]

What will your annual mileage be?

Might be worth looking at Octopus Drive Pack. Gives unlimited (IIRC there's some fair use restriction) home charging for £30/mth.

You do miss out on the whole house getting cheap rates while charging on IOG - however the standard khh rate on IOG is a little higher.

[Frankychops]

I use tomato energy at 4.5p between 00:00 - 06:00

[Quattr04.]

Sheepshanks said:

What will your annual mileage be?

Might be worth looking at Octopus Drive Pack. Gives unlimited (IIRC there's some fair use restriction) home charging for £30/mth.

You do miss out on the whole house getting cheap rates while charging on IOG - however the standard khh rate on IOG is a little higher.

20k business and about 5k personal

Yeah I saw that most have a higher daily usage, currently BG is 26p and I think octopus is 28p

I don’t have much overnight usage, just the washer dryer once or twice a week, although I do have a electric boiler which costs a fortune to run the UFH so maybe I can shift that to be on overnight and then it radiates though the day

I think intelligent go is the way to go but just wanted to check


- a Tesla wouldn’t be my choice but it’s the only car on the list that’s range is actually viable for me, the only other EV is a Honda ENY:1 which is awful

[APC1]

Please note that in winter your range fully charged or otherwise will definitely be lower due to the cold ambient temp with the addition of you using heating equipment in the car. My EV usually has about 20% less mileage range from the battery available in winter.

[Quattr04.]

APC1 said:

Please note that in winter your range fully charged or otherwise will definitely be lower due to the cold ambient temp with the addition of you using heating equipment in the car. My EV usually has about 20% less mileage range from the battery available in winter.

Thanks, i have factored that in which is one of the reasons I’ve chosen the Tesla as it’s the only one that gives a “real world” range suitable for me, the other options would be sub 200 in the winter

[RotorRambler]

Occasional top up @ 40p Kwh (Tesla peak rate, comparable to ICE, 12p ish a mile), alongside the cheap rate at home (2p a mile).
Overall very cheap to run.

Just plugged in my car though to add 40%, on Octopus (IOG)
It decided to charge now, so the whole house is 7p Kwh for the evening..
Some periods it charges slowly, whatever it decides.

Edited by RotorRambler on Sunday 19th October 21:27

[Sheepshanks]

Quattr04. said:

20k business and about 5k personal

Yeah I saw that most have a higher daily usage, currently BG is 26p and I think octopus is 28p

I don t have much overnight usage, just the washer dryer once or twice a week, although I do have a electric boiler which costs a fortune to run the UFH so maybe I can shift that to be on overnight and then it radiates though the day

I think intelligent go is the way to go but just wanted to check

If all your charging was at home then that's going to be something like £500/yr on IOG. If you could run the electric boiler at least some of the time while charging then that would work well for you. But as illustrated by the previous poster, you'd have to keep an eye on the schedule IOG gave you, apart from the fixed 11.30PM to 5.30AM slot (whihc you gert whether charging or nott).

Otherwise on Octopus if you used Intelligent Drive pack that'd cost you £360/yr. I think you can add that to any Octopus tarriff so you could pick a cheaper one (I don't think there'd be much in it though) than IOG.

[survivalist]

Sorry for being nosey, but what are you doing to drive 100-200 miles a day? Seems like a big mileage these days.

[Quattr04.]

survivalist said:

Sorry for being nosey, but what are you doing to drive 100-200 miles a day? Seems like a big mileage these days.

Building service so different sites each day, some are 25 miles away, a couple are 100 miles each way

It can vary, some weeks il do 50 a day all week, next week will be 150 a day for a week

[Quattr04.]

Sheepshanks said:

If all your charging was at home then that's going to be something like £500/yr on IOG. If you could run the electric boiler at least some of the time while charging then that would work well for you. But as illustrated by the previous poster, you'd have to keep an eye on the schedule IOG gave you, apart from the fixed 11.30PM to 5.30AM slot (whihc you gert whether charging or nott).

Otherwise on Octopus if you used Intelligent Drive pack that'd cost you £360/yr. I think you can add that to any Octopus tarriff so you could pick a cheaper one (I don't think there'd be much in it though) than IOG.

I think I might try out IOG, the boiler is quite power hungry I think it’s 12kw at full pelt so to run that over night would help, and I’ll be claiming back the milage at 13p a mile from work so expect to be claiming back a big chunk of the energy cost for the whole house each month (which also will pay for the charger since I have to get it fitted!)

Most of the other energy usage can’t be shifted, cooking etc, I think shifting the heating to overnight could work well, I notice the floor was still warm at 9pm tonight when the UFH switched off at 9am so it’s worth a shot

[sixor8]

Frankychops said:

I use tomato energy at 4.5p between 00:00 - 06:00

Just looked at Tomato Energy, they are not accepting new customers.

Issues with them:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5q19geggno

They've just received a £1.5m fine too.

Edited by sixor8 on Sunday 19th October 23:00

[Sheepshanks]

sixor8 said:

Frankychops said:

I use tomato energy at 4.5p between 00:00 - 06:00

Just looked at Tomato Energy, they are not accepting new customers.

They’ve just been fined £1.5M……for having no money!

[sixor8]

Yes, here's an article about it:

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/business/2025/...