Octopus Fixed and Intelligent drive pack

ASB1960

The £30 drive pack is my best option by far.

I have an Ohme home pro.

Trying to sign up it's hard to make any progress.

I have gone through the sign up process, it says we'll tell you when we've added it.

No confirmation email or anything.

If I ask octopus help via email (since anything else seems to no longer be an option) they respond a couple of days later saying "here's the link to sign up".

Has anybody who has done it any indication of timeframes etc.

It's annoying paying around 50-60kw daily at standard rates whilst trying to get switched. (To be fair this was only Monday I started the process).

I know my smart meter is sending data.

(I added my charger to the octopus app and had set the ohme to this tariff combination, but the ohme failed. Removing charger the ohme would add).

Really it's just the lack of feedback grom Octopus that makes me wonder whether anything is happening.

MattMattMattUK

ASB1960 said:

The £30 drive pack is my best option by far.

I have an Ohme home pro.

Trying to sign up it's hard to make any progress.

I have gone through the sign up process, it says we'll tell you when we've added it.

No confirmation email or anything.

If I ask octopus help via email (since anything else seems to no longer be an option) they respond a couple of days later saying "here's the link to sign up".

Has anybody who has done it any indication of timeframes etc.

It's annoying paying around 50-60kw daily at standard rates whilst trying to get switched. (To be fair this was only Monday I started the process).

I know my smart meter is sending data.

(I added my charger to the octopus app and had set the ohme to this tariff combination, but the ohme failed. Removing charger the ohme would add).

Really it's just the lack of feedback grom Octopus that makes me wonder whether anything is happening.

When I switched to IOG it activated at midnight that day, but from what I have heard the drive packs take a bit longer. Has it completed the test smart charges yet where Octopus control the charge?

Just a query on the 50-60kWh per day, are you really driving 200+ miles every day, or was that just a one off charge as the car was empty?

ASB1960

140 miles, motorway. Heater, lights, 35 kwh/100 plus losses in charging. And other usage. So thereabouts (yes it's legitimate observation 👍)

It hasn't done the trst charge as such but ....

Add charger to octopus app it does want my ohme credentials and did connect and did offer IOG. I have removed charger, because drive pack is seperate.

(It might have been easier and better to switch to iog then add drive pack and fixed, but not sure that was possible).

The drive pack setup seems to run in a different way to IOG.

MattMattMattUK

You should be able to add the charger to Octopus in the app without linking it to a tariff (e.g. you can actually set it to smart charge on SVT, although with no benefit to yourself), then with the car plugged in set a test charge window so it can verify both being smart and how much power it can deliver unless they have changed the process in the last six months, or it is different for car Vs charger being the smart element.

After that I am not sure about linking to Drive which I guess would be a separate process.

ASB1960

There seem to be different behaviours on the website and the app which confuses.

On the website there is no obvious process, but it leads through to smart tariff , one of which is drive pack.

Fill in forms and a screen says "we will be in touch", but nothing at all since monday AM.

On the app "change tariff" gives me a screen saying "email us".

If I add the device through the screen all good, but it only lets me switch to IOG and the charger then assumes I am on that tariff. But will allow scheduled. My octopus tariff is still just fixed.

Looks like I am stuck with email and slow turnaround.

QrizB

I don't know how it works for the Drive pack, but on IOG you manage an Ohme charger via the Ohme app rather than via the Octopus one.

F430124175

I signed up to MSE just to make this first post, having been let down by Octopus. Warning: Long post, but TL;DR – Drive Pack has been “retired” so if it’s not happened yet, it’s unlikely to.

My son has just started an MSc with an internship and expects to be driving 25,000 miles in the coming year, and with no income he figured that switching to an EV would save a lot of fuel cost.  Octopus Intelligent Go has that headline EV charge tariff of 7 p/kWh, but has a higher cost for peak power and even standing charge vs. the standard variable tariff, so that the effective cost is more like 11 p/kWh.

Like the OP, the Drive Pack add-on seemed to me to be great value, perhaps too good to be true, and you know what that means…

I had to get smart meters installed, then switch to Octopus, and get an EV charger installed.  In the meantime the EV (MG4 longe range) was purchased and we were using a granny charger to start.  The switch of energy supplier was completed on 08-Oct, 2 days after the request, and the smart meter connected up straight away. I then requested the Drive Pack add-on, but received no acknowledgement other than the standard web page response.  The EV charger was installed on 11-Oct and I queried progress on 13-Oct by email and by phone and received an email response saying my “registration with us is successful” with contact details for the EV charging team, and was told verbally that the Drive Pack addition was a “manual” process carried out by a separate team.

I waited a few weeks and tried to chase up the Drive Pack but had forgotten the contact details supplied and went via the main support number and repeatedly got the run around from people misunderstanding Drive Pack and routing me to EV vehicle team for example.

Eventually I received an email on 30-Oct confirming that the Drive Pack would be active on 08-Nov, together with a statement that “The team only onboard customers on the 8th and 24th of every month and need at least 3 weeks to get a customer onto the Drive Pack”.

Nothing happened on 08-Nov, so I called Octopus again, and was encouraged to submit a complaint and request compensation, but was not given any update, just confirmation that a request for an update had been made.

On 12-Nov I was flabbergasted to receive an email stating that “sign-ups for the Intelligent Drive Pack are being temporarily paused as we are oversubscribed” and referring me to Intelligent Go in the meantime, along with an offer of £50 compensation for inconvenience and time wasted.  The website still shows the Intelligent Drive Pack “teaser” box but when you click on it the link simply says “Intelligent Drive Pack is currently oversubscribed. Join Intelligent Octopus Go instead.” with no other information as to whether it is a temporary or permanent suspension.

I responded to say I was not happy at all and pointed out that Intelligent Go would cost around £600 per year more that the Fixed 12 month tariff plus Drive Pack I had expected to be on.

So finally I sent in a formal complaint requesting additional compensation, and indicating that all the time Drive Pack was not being added, I would expect additional compensation.

I have now received a “full and final” response from Octopus offering the compensation I requested (the different in cost for the EV charging at the Fixed 12 month tariff vs. 7 p/kWh, up until 08-Nov) but stating that they are “unable to honour your request to be placed on this tariff” (Drive Pack) and further stating that “the initial application was made before your account was live with our supply. A subsequent application was required once you were on supply with us to successfully onboard the tariff, which unfortunately did not occur.” 

And then the killer statement: “Because this tariff has since been retired from our system, it is technically impossible to apply it to any account.”

I knew full well that the process was to switch to Octopus first then apply for Drive Pack, so I refute their claim that I had requested Drive Pack “too early” because I was told several times verbally that yes my application was active, and the 30-Oct email stated clearly a completion date which could not have happened if my application was not active.

If Octopus wanted to apply Drive Pack they surely could, despite it being “retired”, and my own suspicion is that it proved to be too popular, they couldn’t keep up with demand, and realized they were going to be losing a lot of money.

I will be taking my complaint further with Ofgem, but don’t expect anything much to happen, and in the meantime I am on the hunt again for the best tariff (So Energy looks promising) and expect to leave Octopus very soon as a disgruntled customer of barely 2 months.

Exceptional customer service? Yes, exceptionally bad customer service

QrizB

F430124175 said:

I signed up to MSE just to make this first post,

Welcome to the forum.

F430124175 said:

Drive Pack has been “retired” so if it’s not happened yet, it’s unlikely to.

Not a huge surprise; it was a niche offering and most customers would be better off with Go or IOG.

F430124175 said:

I responded to say I was not happy at all and pointed out that Intelligent Go would cost around £600 per year more that the Fixed 12 month tariff plus Drive Pack I had expected to be on.

Are you now on Intelligent Go?

Can you share your calculations re. IOG costing more than the Drive pack?

25k miles in an MG 4 would be something like 8000 kWh, which would cost £560 on IOG. The Drive pack would be £360 for the year, so I can't quite see how you're £600 out of pocket?

born_again

Down side of the drive pack.
Only works for one car.
No house use at off peak rate if daytime charging. (big bonus of IOG)

MWT

born_again said:

No house use at off peak rate if daytime charging. (big bonus of IOG)

Agreed, got to love that feature, just had 16:00-17:00 and now 17:30 - 18:00...

Not even a large charge, but happy to take the win. 

F430124175

QrizB said:

Are you now on Intelligent Go?

Can you share your calculations re. IOG costing more than the Drive pack?

25k miles in an MG 4 would be something like 8000 kWh, which would cost £560 on IOG. The Drive pack would be £360 for the year, so I can't quite see how you're £600 out of pocket?

I am currently on the Octopus Fixed 12mo tariff and in the Southern area, peak electricity is 26.272 p/kWh with standing charge 43.66 p/day whilst gas is 6.71 p/kWh with standing charge of 32.52.  Based on 5900 kWh electricity and 17000 kWh gas, total without EV is £2740 for the year, and the EV charging would have been an extra £360.

WIth IOG variable (cheaper than Fixed 12mo), the tariffs are 29.14 p/kWh and 43.82 p/day for electricty plus 6.36 p/kWh and 35.62 p/day for gas, making the annual cost for same usage excluding EV £3090, which is £350 more.  Assuming EV charging uses 8000 kWh for a year, that's £560.  Adding on the £350 extra for the more expensive nornal electricity (£228) and gas (£122) then that's effectively £910 for the EV charging if expressed as the extra charge above "normal" electricity and gas, which works out to be 11.4 p/kWh which is a lot more than the "headline" 7 p/kWh.

Thus IOG at £910 for charging the EV is £550 more than the Drive Pack at £360 (some earlier calcs I did were a bit more pessimistic on EV charging with more thant 8000 kWh and I got closer to to £600, but I used your figure this time).

I'm working the numbers out like this because up until my son decided to get an EV I had been quite happy with Utility Warehouse for years on their standard varaible tariff (with discounts for phone/broadband) that were almost identical to the Octopus standard variable tariff, and during periodic checks in the past they had always seemed competitive.  So it seemed sensible to work out how much the extra EV charging would cost above this base level.

When you bring an EV into the picture, the headline-grabbing 7 p/kWh (or sometimes better: e.g. So Glenmore EV is 6.06 p/kWh!) hides the fact that you're paying more for your standard electricity (and gas - even though an EV consumes no gas) so that the effective rate is nowhere near as good.