EV tariff or not

eastcorkram

I don't have an EV, but thinking of getting one. 

If I get a home charger put in, I could switch to an EV tariff. My current tariff is at 21p a unit. The EV one means I could charge at night for 6p, but, all my other usage would be at 29p. 

I wouldn't be doing massive mileage, so I imagine not charging very often, and wondering might it be better to stay on the existing tariff, and just charge at 21p per unit?

la531983

eastcorkram said:

I don't have an EV, but thinking of getting one. 

If I get a home charger put in, I could switch to an EV tariff. My current tariff is at 21p a unit. The EV one means I could charge at night for 6p, but, all my other usage would be at 29p. 

I wouldn't be doing massive mileage, so I imagine not charging very often, and wondering might it be better to stay on the existing tariff, and just charge at 21p per unit?

Surely depends what else you could do overnight. Water storage heaters? Put the washing machine on early?

eastcorkram

la531983 said:

eastcorkram said:

I don't have an EV, but thinking of getting one. 

If I get a home charger put in, I could switch to an EV tariff. My current tariff is at 21p a unit. The EV one means I could charge at night for 6p, but, all my other usage would be at 29p. 

I wouldn't be doing massive mileage, so I imagine not charging very often, and wondering might it be better to stay on the existing tariff, and just charge at 21p per unit?

Surely depends what else you could do overnight. Water storage heaters? Put the washing machine on early?

I wasn't sure about that. Whether it was only the charge point that was using cheap, or anything at all used between certain times. I'll need to investigate!

la531983

eastcorkram said:

la531983 said:

eastcorkram said:

I don't have an EV, but thinking of getting one. 

If I get a home charger put in, I could switch to an EV tariff. My current tariff is at 21p a unit. The EV one means I could charge at night for 6p, but, all my other usage would be at 29p. 

I wouldn't be doing massive mileage, so I imagine not charging very often, and wondering might it be better to stay on the existing tariff, and just charge at 21p per unit?

Surely depends what else you could do overnight. Water storage heaters? Put the washing machine on early?

I wasn't sure about that. Whether it was only the charge point that was using cheap, or anything at all used between certain times. I'll need to investigate!

Depends if its a two rate tariff or an add on tariff. You want the former, only a couple of providers offer the latter anyway

Electric vehicle energy tariffs - Money Saving Expert

born_again

Makes good reading

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6613165/ev-low-mileage/p1

If you are going this route.
Take it you have a smart meter.
Think about which supplier you are going to use, then check that the charger you are thinking about getting is supported by them. As it makes life a lot easier. 
Such as Octopus only support 4 at the moment,
OVO have just dropped support for OHME (upset a lot of people) 

Tariffs such as Octopus Intelligent Go, will allow daytime charging (when supply allows, never had a issue with this) & that also includes whole house at off peak rate.

My average unit rate over a month is between 12p & 15p kWh. 
Peak 27.48 kWh
Off Peak 7p kWh

eastcorkram

I'd be getting the current supplier to fit the charger. I thought that way, there's no compatibility issue, although I suppose they could cause that problem at any point in the future. 

To help with this sums, am I understanding this correctly? If I charged the car for say, 7 hours, would that use 7x7.4 units, at say 21p each? So it would be around £10.87 to charge at daytime rate? 

born_again

About right. As there are losses in charging car.

You really need to sit dawn & look at what sort of mileage you do now, & base your figures on that.

eastcorkram

I already know that financially, it's not worth me changing to an EV. I know this is MSE, but I'd still like to get one before I die!

Doing some quick sums, even with the higher day rate, I would be better off switching to the EV tariff, by two or three pounds a week. Assuming I charged it once a week. I didn't really want to be faffing around with having it charging during the night, or using the app etc. Just wondered was it just easier to plug it in and charge when it suited me. 

If it was charging overnight, I'd probably wake up to find cable gone! 

born_again

Cable can't be removed while charging their locked in. So your safe there.

App is a big plus. Pre heat/cool car 👍
All chargers will have a app now, as they have to be smart chargers. Easy to use.

It's not all about how much it costs to charge.
You have to factor in Battery size, miles per kWh & how many miles you do. 

I do roughly 300 miles a month. 64kWh battery Get more than 4 miles/kWh
I could get away with one charge. But not worth the risk.
Cost to charge for 64kWh @ 7p £4.48
Cost to charge for 64kWh @ 21p £13.00 (pricing not including any losses)


300 miles @ 10 mile per ltr @ £1.30 is £39.00 (not many will get 10 mile per ltr)
Even at your 21p you would be cheaper than a ICE by a nice £26.00

Have a play

https://www.zap-map.com/tools

Archerychick

On average how much kWh are you using a day currently?

I use 2.5kwh per day, plus any charging of my EV. I probably charge on average 3/4 times a week; and that’s 10 kWh. 

I am on octopus go, which gives me 8p for a chunk of time overnight and 27p for the rest of the time. It’s definitely cheaper to be on this tariff than a fix or other version. I do sometimes pop over onto Agile if it’s likely to be very low and negative pricing, then I hop back to Octopus Go. 

It’s around 60% of my energy is in the 8p slots. 

dunstonh

I already know that financially, it's not worth me changing to an EV. I know this is MSE, but I'd still like to get one before I die!

I'm a company director of own company.  So, EVs are an absolute no brainer and saves a fortune.

However, if you can home charge a personally owned EV and never charge away from home, then you may well sav money with an EV depending on your mileage.

at 5p for the off peak rate, 250 miles costs about £2.20.   
Plus, in our case, around 70% of our use is off peak.