Best option for EV tariff

kokolino23

Hello,
We're with Octopus and we had a fixed tariff until December 2025. Commuting to a new job pushed me to buy an electric car so I had to switch the Electricity tariff to Intelligent Octopus Go. This comes with a price because we have to pay more during the day and can't get another fixed tariff.
What would be the best option for us considering the recent price increase?
Thank you 

Peter999_2

Hi,
How many miles roughly will you be doing a month?    The amount of money you will save on fuel will most likely easily outweigh the additional cost of the more expensive daytime electric.

To give you an idea, we've had Intelligent Go since 1st October 2024.   We've done 13,161.2 miles (two cars).  This has cost us £227.51 (we pay 7p per kWh - it's fixed for a year and I don't know if it has increased for new customers).    I calculated how much it would have cost in our old cars. The petrol cost would have been £2,500.63 so we have saved £2,273.12 in slightly over a year.

Don't forget that the whole house gets the cheap rate whenever the car is being charged (quite often, intelligent go schedules charging during the day for us).    We therefore do all the washing/drying/dish washing/cooking (when possible) when the car is charging.     We used to pay about £130 a month for electric on the standard cap and now we are paying about £120 including charging the cars.   We have also got more energy efficient in the last year so it's not a simple comparision.

QrizB

You'll need to do the maths, as above. Which tariff is best for you will depend on how your consumption is split between the two rates.

Have you looked at the MSE guide?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/ev-energy-tariffs/

Keep_pedalling

If you don’t heat with electricity then an EV tariff is going to be cheaper even if you don’t do a massive amount of miles. 

chrisw

Peter999_2 said:

Don't forget that the whole house gets the cheap rate whenever the car is being charged (quite often, intelligent go schedules charging during the day for us).    We therefore do all the washing/drying/dish washing/cooking (when possible) when the car is charging.     We used to pay about £130 a month for electric on the standard cap and now we are paying about £120 including charging the cars.   We have also got more energy efficient in the last year so it's not a simple comparision.

Yes, I set the dishwasher and washing machine to run overnight which felt a bit uncomfortable at first with the stories about fires,etc, but I have plenty of smoke alarms and have got used to it now. My monthly bill has also dropped from £140 to £120 including charging the car, from my previous fixed tariff. So free motoring effectively.

MattMattMattUK

I have an electric only flat, I charge my EV on the IOG tariff, heat water on the cheap rate, run the dishwasher and washing machine mostly overnight. I rarely need to use the heating as it is very well insulated but when I do the additional barely matters (not storage heaters) as I save enough on everything else. The same as Chris above, my overall energy bills went down even including all my EV charging. I do around 1,000 miles a month, that costs me about £16-18, which is brilliant. 

kokolino23

Thanks for your replies, we do around 1000 miles a month so I presume it's the same as most of you.

MattMattMattUK

kokolino23 said:

Thanks for your replies, we do around 1000 miles a month so I presume it's the same as most of you.

It will somewhat depend on your EV and how many miles/kWh you average, but that will only depend on how much you save rather than whether you save. 1k miles a month on an EV tariff would cost me £17.50, on a standard tariff it would cost £66.48. I also save by moving my water heating, dishwashing and most laundry to that window, around £0.80 per day saving on average (electric only flat). The small increase in my day rate barely makes any difference, even without the savings from driving one would need a high and unusual consumption pattern to be worse off on the EV tariff, or drive very few miles.

NorthEastLight

As above you need to do the maths. 12000 miles @ 3.5miles/kWh rounded up = 3500 kWh + add your annual house night use will give a rough starting point for the cheap rate. 

IOG can work out cheaper than other EV tariffs because the overnight rate and hours available more than offset the higher day rate vs alternative EV tariffs.

In my use case as a high day rate user but below  average mileage EDF's fixed EV tariff has historically beaten IOG.

Looking today I was offered a fix on IOG as well as variable - but fixed day rate is more than 4p higher than EDF's fixed EV day tariff and IOG fixed day was higher than the variable IOG.

If you value the certainty of a fix then factor that into your decision making.

Competitiveness of gas prices is also a factor if that's your heat source and you want a single supplier.

born_again

kokolino23 said:

Thanks for your replies, we do around 1000 miles a month so I presume it's the same as most of you.

IOG will be cheaper at that mileage. 

I do a max of 500 miles, daughter does 300 miles a month. 
Most months are less than £80 for electric. Someone is in 24/7

Remember that you can charge out of 23:30 to 05:30 & if approved you get all house usage at 7p as well. Just charged daughters car today from 08:38 to 14:00 in that time did several loads of washing used tumble dryer, even though it was sunny as well.

Oscarmax

We are on the standard Octopus Go tariff (we have a PHEV) the peak rate is only slightly higher, compared to the price of petrol and saving you make the free extra pennies are insignificant.