Octopus EV charging rip-off coming end January

bigpops

The great Octopus EV charging rip-off.

 

Octopus Energy are one of the largest suppliers of domestic energy in the UK and have introduced a clever system of providing EV charging at low cost – Intelligent Octopus Go. Their algorithm decides when and how fast to charge your EV to spread the load and take advantage of cheap electricity at the wholesale level – in other words, for their own commercial advantage.

 

Octopus advertises on its website as late as 21st December 2025 that "With Intelligent Octopus Go you'll save when charging your EV and on the energy use of your whole home with "all smart charging at off-peak rates - no matter when"”. So people could sign up not knowing what was coming down the line.

 

However, on the 5th December 2025 Octopus emailed its customers to state

“To keep our off-peak rates as low as possible, by the end of January we will be updating Intelligent Octopus Go to automatically apply the six-hour limit for super-cheap charging”.

 

The rip-off is obvious – the limit does not apply to energy usage, only the hours when it is used. The Intelligent Octopus go algorithm not only decides when to charge your EV but what rate of charge (kw/h) to apply. 

 

For example, I plugged my Tesla in yesterday midday and Octopus delivered 22.73kw of charge over 11hrs 43 mins. I have a 32A Zappi charger.

 

Under the new charging system, Octopus would charge the higher rate for 5hrs 43 minutes of this charge, even though they could have provided all of the charge within the 6-hour low rate window.

 

I estimate that this change will cost me an extra £50 per month – a monumental rip-off.

matt_drummer

How long was your Tesla actually charging for?

I suspect not the whole 11 hours and 43 minutes?

Probably charging for just over 3 hours?

It won't have been actually charging your car for in excess of six hours even though it was plugged in for longer.

So this change won't cost you anything extra in my estimation.

I also estimate that you are not being ripped off.

MattMattMattUK

bigpops said:

The great Octopus EV charging rip-off.

 

Octopus Energy are one of the largest suppliers of domestic energy in the UK and have introduced a clever system of providing EV charging at low cost – Intelligent Octopus Go. Their algorithm decides when and how fast to charge your EV to spread the load and take advantage of cheap electricity at the wholesale level – in other words, for their own commercial advantage.

 

Octopus advertises on its website as late as 21st December 2025 that "With Intelligent Octopus Go you'll save when charging your EV and on the energy use of your whole home with "all smart charging at off-peak rates - no matter when"”. So people could sign up not knowing what was coming down the line.

 

However, on the 5th December 2025 Octopus emailed its customers to state

“To keep our off-peak rates as low as possible, by the end of January we will be updating Intelligent Octopus Go to automatically apply the six-hour limit for super-cheap charging”.

 

The rip-off is obvious – the limit does not apply to energy usage, only the hours when it is used. The Intelligent Octopus go algorithm not only decides when to charge your EV but what rate of charge (kw/h) to apply. 

 

For example, I plugged my Tesla in yesterday midday and Octopus delivered 22.73kw of charge over 11hrs 43 mins. I have a 32A Zappi charger.

 

Under the new charging system, Octopus would charge the higher rate for 5hrs 43 minutes of this charge, even though they could have provided all of the charge within the 6-hour low rate window.

 

I estimate that this change will cost me an extra £50 per month – a monumental rip-off.

You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick.

The charge time shown in the Tesla app (I also have one) is the total time plugged in, as does the Octopus app, not the total time power is drawn to charge the vehicle. The car will only have actually been charging for a the required period, at the relevant charging rate for the battery SOC.

This change has come in because unfortunately some people using chargers rather than charging via smart vehicle control have been gaming the system to cause charging to trigger outside of the off-peak window, telling the charger (which cannot see the vehicle SOC) that it needs to provide say 80kWh of charge by a specific deadline to trigger off peak charging during normal peak windows, that then meant that all usage was charged at the off-peak rate, sometimes people were engineering it so that they were getting 15-20 hours of off peak usage per day. Unfortunately these people have caused negative consequences for everyone, Octopus were previously happy of people had genuine charging needs of more than the six hour window, but that has gone for everyone and it particularly impacts those who have to rely on granny chargers. 

This change will not cost you any more unless there are days when you need more than 42kWh of charge and even those days you could split the top up over a longer period. 

Keep_pedalling

This is not a rip off, it is the result of people gaming the system by deliberately throttling their charging rates so that they more cheap electricity for things other than car charging and forcing Octopus to provide cheap electricity during periods of high demand. 

Octopus are not throttling the charging rate, the app mislabels time plugged in with charging time, this is supposed to be being sorted out shortly. have a Zappi the charging rate is alway at full rate, although I understand that people with Ohme chargers are seeing throttling but that was being done by Ohme not Octopus and again that is being sorted (possibly already done.

Plugging in when you did is what Octopus want there customers to do as this gives them the option to charge at the time of least demand / periods of excess generation. Providing you don’t charge for longer than 6 hours you won’t be charged the peak rate, and I understand the app will get a new feature that allows you to maximise the charging period to 6 hours. 

WiserMiser

bigpops said:

The Intelligent Octopus go algorithm not only decides when to charge your EV but what rate of charge (kw/h) to apply.

For example, I plugged my Tesla in yesterday midday and Octopus delivered 22.73kw of charge over 11hrs 43 mins.

Welcome to the forum.

Your posts will be more effective if you get the units correct; there's no such thing as kilowatts per hour.

Let's try this instead.

"The Intelligent Octopus go algorithm not only decides when to charge your EV but what rate of charge (kW) to apply.

"For example, I plugged my Tesla in yesterday midday and Octopus delivered 22.73kWh of charge over 11hrs 43 mins."

bigpops

Thanks for the comments, Matt
1. Do you disagree with my point "The Intelligent Octopus go algorithm not only decides when to charge your EV but what rate of charge (kw/h) to apply."?
2. How do you know that I will get 42kWh within the 6 hours?

matt_drummer

1. Yes
2. Because 6 x 7 = 42

bigpops

Thanks again.

Sorry, I clearly don't understand enough here.

How do you know Octopus will deliver 7kw consistently over the 6 hours?

Keep_pedalling

bigpops said:

Thanks again.

Sorry, I clearly don't understand enough here.

How do you know Octopus will deliver 7kw consistently over the 6 hours?

I have never seen anything any lower over the years I have been on this tariff. Having said that some home set-ups can throttle the charging rate if the demand from the rest of the home is high. This will only be the case if your supply is shared with a neighbour and instead if a 100A main fuse you have a  60A one. 

matt_drummer

bigpops said:

Thanks again.

Sorry, I clearly don't understand enough here.

How do you know Octopus will deliver 7kw consistently over the 6 hours?

I have a Tesla and a Zappi.

They haven't controlled the charge rate up until now, I am not sure that they even can.

I do know that they can switch the charging on and off several times during a charging session but when charging it is always at the full 7kW for me.

In any case, I start from the position that Octopus will deliver what they promise, just like they always have done. And if something goes wrong I will talk them and they will sort it out.

I don't start from the position of I am being ripped off and then work my way back to being treated fairly if my original stance turns out untrue.

chrisw

Ohme chargers were throttling the charge rates but for at least the last two weeks mine has been charging at the maximum rate, so I assume that part of it is just about sorted.