Best energy tariff for fully electric car?

Dragonjnr

Do you have any advice or experience around changing to an "economy 7" type tariff, and charging your fully electric vehicle overnight?  I see that Octopus have a scheme, and special adaptor, to take advantage of cheaper electricity overnight - but is it worth it?

niktheguru

Octopus have their "go" tariff which charges 5p per kwh for 4 hours at night. You don't necessarily need any special adaptor, so long as either your EV charger or your car has a scheduler/timer for when it asks for charge. You will need a smart meter with them to go on that tariff. There are a few other companies that have EV style tariffs, but i've found their standard unit rate to be crazy high to offset any benefit of the night rate.
Currently i'm just using a 10p per kwh tariff with the infamous symbio. But when that runs out in a couple of months and increases to 13p i'm considering changing to the octopus go.

You really have to do the sums yourself. When does your household use electricity? If it uses a lot during the day then something like agile go or just the cheapest normal tariff may be good for you. The problem with economy 7 is that although it is cheaper at night, its more expensive in the day than a normal one unit rate tariff, so if you use a lot of leccy in the day it may not fit for you.

Another consideration is how often you think you need to charge your car, and what size battery does it have. 

[Deleted User]

Dragonjnr said:

Do you have any advice or experience around changing to an "economy 7" type tariff, and charging your fully electric vehicle overnight?  I see that Octopus have a scheme, and special adaptor, to take advantage of cheaper electricity overnight - but is it worth it?

I assume that the adapter that you are talking about is the Ohme cable? To make best use of Go, you really need a 7.2kW/32amp home charging point. All of Octopus’ smart tariffs also require a smart meter as billing is done on 30 minute usage not meter readings.

Dragonjnr

niktheguru said:

Octopus have their "go" tariff which charges 5p per kwh for 4 hours at night. You don't necessarily need any special adaptor, so long as either your EV charger or your car has a scheduler/timer for when it asks for charge. You will need a smart meter with them to go on that tariff. There are a few other companies that have EV style tariffs, but i've found their standard unit rate to be crazy high to offset any benefit of the night rate.
Currently i'm just using a 10p per kwh tariff with the infamous symbio. But when that runs out in a couple of months and increases to 13p i'm considering changing to the octopus go.

You really have to do the sums yourself. When does your household use electricity? If it uses a lot during the day then something like agile go or just the cheapest normal tariff may be good for you. The problem with economy 7 is that although it is cheaper at night, its more expensive in the day than a normal one unit rate tariff, so if you use a lot of leccy in the day it may not fit for you.

Another consideration is how often you think you need to charge your car, and what size battery does it have. 

This is really useful - thank you.  I'm a new EV driver, or will be later this year, so am using the time before delivery to make sure I've got all the info!

[Deleted User]

Dragonjnr said:

niktheguru said:

Octopus have their "go" tariff which charges 5p per kwh for 4 hours at night. You don't necessarily need any special adaptor, so long as either your EV charger or your car has a scheduler/timer for when it asks for charge. You will need a smart meter with them to go on that tariff. There are a few other companies that have EV style tariffs, but i've found their standard unit rate to be crazy high to offset any benefit of the night rate.
Currently i'm just using a 10p per kwh tariff with the infamous symbio. But when that runs out in a couple of months and increases to 13p i'm considering changing to the octopus go.

You really have to do the sums yourself. When does your household use electricity? If it uses a lot during the day then something like agile go or just the cheapest normal tariff may be good for you. The problem with economy 7 is that although it is cheaper at night, its more expensive in the day than a normal one unit rate tariff, so if you use a lot of leccy in the day it may not fit for you.

Another consideration is how often you think you need to charge your car, and what size battery does it have. 

This is really useful - thank you.  I'm a new EV driver, or will be later this year, so am using the time before delivery to make sure I've got all the info!

You might be better off posing any questions that you have about EVs and charging on the SpeakEV forum rather than MSE. You will find that there is considerable discussion about tariffs etc.