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Good morning from Washington, unfortunately it’s the Washington in Pulborough Sussex, and not the one on the other side of the pond,
A 3 hour train journey, 2 changes and a £38 fare later I’ve landed, using the split fare option, to save a few pounds, thanks to the posters who flagged this a short while ago.I very rarely travel by public transport, so it was an interesting and entertaining journey, people watching, seeing people’s expressions when there is a new arrival that sits next to them, a couple of side eyes then back to the task in hand. Unfortunately there were the usual suspects talking loudly on their phones.
I am posting this on a new chat, in the hope any answers will help posters in the future, as EV sales appear to be gaining traction.
I am here at a car dealer to take possession of a new model EV, as a gift for my wife.
Anyway my reason for this post is because a while back, there were a few posters with EV’s that kindly posted their experiences with their respective energy suppliers tariffs, but I cannot find the thread, as it was embedded on a daily chat.
So if there are any EV users that would be kind enough to share their recommendations, it would be appreciated, this was an impulse purchase of our first EV so I have not had time to look into tariff options before picking up the vehicle.
A heads up regarding the new EV tax!
EV owners are exempt from paying car tax until April 2025 – but you can delay paying it for another year, it does not matter when you car tax renews, you can tax it anytime, if you re-tax your EV in March, so it’s taxed for 12 months, you can delay the new tax (averaging £195 a year) until April 2026.We are with Octopus, they have two options depending on your car / charger setup. The good thing about their tariff is it applies to all your usage overnight, so we also charge up some batteries and we have solar so nearly all our electricity is bought for 7p per kwh
@Gordon – have you seen the new proposed taxes on ICE cars in France just passed by decree? €70,000 malus tax on a Porsche Cayenne!
Rachel will need to tax EVs here much more to plug not only the growing gap of missing fuel duty/tax but to satisfy her desperate need for more revenue to pay existing bills, let alone the increased spending she desires.
@SamG – Thank you for your post, we are actually with Octopus also, moved over when Bulb went bust!
I will look at that option once I’m home later.
I installed the Easee one 7.5kw charger yesterday, so it’s all ready.@Gordon – have you seen the new proposed taxes on ICE cars in France just passed by decree? €70,000 malus tax on a Porsche Cayenne!
Rachel will need to tax EVs here much more to plug not only the growing gap of missing fuel duty/tax but to satisfy her desperate need for more revenue to pay existing bills, let alone the increased spending she desires.
Or she could remove the unfair corporation tax relief on new EVs
@JDB – I guessed the government would be clawing the lost revenue in fuel duty from somewhere, I have seen articles on this, tbh we should be accustomed to these taxes now!
I carried out some calculations yesterday, and the EV cost on our vehicle was 4.5 miles per kWh, so a big saving on our current 4 year old petrol vehicle, that was £6,50 for a 24 mile journey. We will have to see what transpires!
@Gordon I’m with Eon Next on their Drive tariff. 7 hours a night (midnight – 7am) at 6.7p/kWh fixed for a year (with no early exit fees if a better tariff comes along before then). Applicable to all household usage in that time period.
Let me know if you would like a referral code (we both get £50).
@sman9 – Thank you for your recommendation, I will look at the options.
We are on Intelligent Octopus Go tariff which works well for us as heavy users. A charging plan is created by Octopus shortly after you have plugged in the car to suit the amount of charge you need by the time you are ready to leave.
Two main options in my opinion. Intelligent Octopus Go if the combination of car and charger are compatible or as mentioned above Eon Next Drive v5 which gives 7 hours of electricity at 6.7p. Be a little wary if you do switch to Eon as there are two versions of Next Drive, standard and R2. The former used Time of Use (TOU) and bills half hourly and the latter is designed for people with dual rate meters and the time slots switch to match E7 and daylight saving.
I’ve had my EV now for 3 weeks and it’s fantastic, £1.50 to travel 90 miles the other day having charged at home.
Not sure if it makes any difference to compatibility, the EV is the New Kia EV3 GT Line S, 81kwh battery, 370 mile range, on a good day! it seems a lot more complicated than the old vehicle, I’ve got to drive it back home a 2.5 hour journey, so hope I can persevere with it, @Strickers, that cost saving makes me feel like I’ve made the right choice, sounds great, Thanks all for your answers, and tips, much appreciated.
EON Next Drive is cheaper than Octopus Go. However Octopus (although there are many problems) is usually seen as having better customer service than EON, and Octopus have several smart meter tariffs one can swap between. Both give a fixed slot of a few hours overnight at a cheap rate, and only very slightly more expensive than normal daytime power. If you have a house battery as well it’s a complete no-brainer, and if you use your EV more than a little bit and/or can switch some household stuff (eg laundry) to overnight, it’s good.
Octopus Intelligent Go requires the car or EVSE (charger) can be interfaced to Octopus. Gives more flexibility, requires more thought, can give you cheap slots at any time of day (during which you can also charge house battery / do laundry / etc). Lots of scope for manipulating it if you can be arsed to.
All of these tariffs are incredible bargains compared to Agile. Absent peace in Ukraine and a resumption of Russian gas deliveries to Europe, this is shaping up to be a really rough year for energy users.
Agree wholeheartedly with @TooPoorToBeHere Octopus has better support and better IT, Eon’s support is much better than it was a year ago but still lags behind.
I haven’t gone all-in with an EV yet as have a petrol hybrid. I am on Intelligent Octopus Go and have a MyEnergi Zappi charger which suits my needs.
Just got back home, it’s been a 9 hour round trip, very tired, Thanks again for all the replies, these have been very helpful, first time driving an electric car, and I’m very impressed, the range was 320 miles on leaving the dealer, and 2.5 hours, and 123 miles later, it has 140 miles of range still left, traveling at 60 and 70mph, very quiet and even on eco all the way home, it goes like a rocket.
I am with Intelligent Octopus Go and using just the slow charger. In practice this means that in addition to the cheap tariff overnight, I am also given plenty of slots throughout the day that give the entire household electricity at 7p per kWh. My average cost per unit has been sitting around 12p over the last few months.
@iEimis – Thank you, much appreciated, as I mentioned up thread, we are actually Octopus customers, so it looks like we just need to speak to them, and get something sorted re the tariffs.
I’ve had my EV now for 3 weeks and it’s fantastic, £1.50 to travel 90 miles the other day having charged at home.
How do you calculate this accurately?
I’ve had my EV now for 3 weeks and it’s fantastic, £1.50 to travel 90 miles the other day having charged at home.
How do you calculate this accurately?
A unit of electricity is 1 kWh so if you have a 7.5 kw charger, you pay 7.5 times your tariff per hour charging, and your EV should tell you your mileage per kWh, most accomplish this at 3 to 4 miles per kWh. So just need to calculate this for your unit of electricity.
So I’d say 90 miles at a cost of £1.50 is fairly accurate.We are with Ovo who have an add on called Charge Anytime. You need to have either one of the supported chargers, or a supported EV (not both).
We pay c.7p per kW (charged at full price with a monthly discount to bring the EV charging cost down to 7p/kWh). For example, in January I was charged £55.28 for EV usage, but received a £33.98 rebate giving a cost of £21.30.
I like it because you just tell the Charge Anytime app when you want your car battery charged to x% and it’ll then choose when to charge based on projected demand on the grid. Of course, if you “choose” a departure time not very far into the future then Charge Anytime will “choose” to charge immediately.
Our car had been de-linked a couple of times but it’s easy to re-link them.
A heads up regarding the new EV tax!
EV owners are exempt from paying car tax until April 2025 – but you can delay paying it for another year, it does not matter when you car tax renews, you can tax it anytime, if you re-tax your EV in March, so it’s taxed for 12 months, you can delay the new tax (averaging £195 a year) until April 2026.I thought you would have to SORN your car to restart the tax year?
A heads up regarding the new EV tax!
EV owners are exempt from paying car tax until April 2025 – but you can delay paying it for another year, it does not matter when you car tax renews, you can tax it anytime, if you re-tax your EV in March, so it’s taxed for 12 months, you can delay the new tax (averaging £195 a year) until April 2026.I thought you would have to SORN your car to restart the tax year?
You don’t. You just go through a screen warning you that you are taxing a car already taxed.
We are with Ovo who have an add on called Charge Anytime. You need to have either one of the supported chargers, or a supported EV (not both).
We pay c.7p per kW (charged at full price with a monthly discount to bring the EV charging cost down to 7p/kWh). For example, in January I was charged £55.28 for EV usage, but received a £33.98 rebate giving a cost of £21.30.
I like it because you just tell the Charge Anytime app when you want your car battery charged to x% and it’ll then choose when to charge based on projected demand on the grid. Of course, if you “choose” a departure time not very far into the future then Charge Anytime will “choose” to charge immediately.
Our car had been de-linked a couple of times but it’s easy to re-link them.
Same here. The plus point is that you can charge at peak times, just by telling the app you need the car charged soon.
You can also choose any OVO tariff alongside the charge anytime. I have a fixed rate about 7% below the current price cap.
@Tracey – Correct, In fact “The Government website will ask “Are you sure?” to which you just click to accept.
I thought you would have to SORN your car to restart the tax year?
You don’t. You just go through a screen warning you that you are taxing a car already taxed.
But if you SORN it you get a refund of future paid months by cheque
For example if you’ve paid until Dec 2025, when you get home on 28th Feb you can make a SORN and you will get a refund of 10 months. Wait until 1st March to pay again. Your car does need to be parked on private land or risk getting fined/clamped.
(Or if you are staying up until midnight to try and bag some Avios seats you can do it around then.)
As the refund is sent by cheque in the post, this is also a way to manufacture spending. If you SORN and retax every month, you can transfer 11/12ths of your annual car tax from Amex into your bank account. I’ve only done it when I was away and didn’t use the car for a full calendar month, not sure if DVLA will be happy to do it every month though…
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