5 Best Electricity Tariffs For Electric Car Drivers
There are around 22 energy suppliers across the UK and new ones coming out all the time promising they can deliver the best price. So, how do you know if the tariff that you’re on is right for you? So, if you’re an electric car driver, these five suppliers offer the best rate for charging your electric car. And number one is the one that I personally use. Now, I recently bought my first EV and for the first month, I made the mistake of not switching my supplier to get cheap overnight rates. And because of that, I was wasting a lot of money. And this had to change because on this channel, we’re all about optimizing and getting the most out of your money. So, with that, do the big six energy suppliers actually still offer you the best rates? Well, let’s find out. Now, it’s true for the first one, but it’s not for all of them on this list. The first tariff you might want to consider is British Gas. Yes, I know, ironically, they’re called British Gas, and I think they should do a name change at some point. And also, on this video, I’m going to consider only electricity suppliers, as a gas is a separate topic, but it’s important to know that you could have two different energy companies. one for your gas and one for your electricity. The British Gas electric car drivers tariff is the most traditional. It’s basically like an economy 7 plan for electric cars. Economy 7 basically means that you get two rates for your electricity. One overnight, which is typically cheaper, and one during the daytime. This idea goes back to when people used to use storage heaters to charge them overnight at a cheaper rate so they can slowly release the heat in the daytime. For electric car drivers, it works in the same way. You schedule that electric car charging in that off- peak window overnight and pay a fraction of what you would pay in the daytime. With the British Gas Tariff, you get 5 hours of cheaper rates overnight from midnight to 5:00 a.m. And when I did a quote to switch tariff to the British Gas one, I got 7.9 p per kilowatt hour overnight during these times. Everything outside of that is charged at a fairly normal rate during the day, as you can see here with the usual standing charge price you’d expect. Now, the reason why British Gas makes this list is because it’s simple. It works with any car and any charger. And of course, they’re a big familiar name. If you’re already with them, you can switch to this tariff quite easily. But there’s a sneaky bonus. If you’ve got one of their Hive Home electric car chargers now, if you leave your car plugged in overnight over 6 hours, and include that midnight to 5:00 a.m. time, they’ll apply credits to your account, which reduces your price per kilowatt hour even further. So, if you’re already invested in a Hive charger, you could even save a lot more. The downside of this tariff, of course, is that it’s only for 5 hours, which is fine for most people, but if you drive long distances and have a big battery in your car, 5 hours at a home charger might not be enough to charge fully overnight. And of course, it’s a big problem if you got two or more cars and need to charge lots of different things at once. Plus, this tariff usually comes with a fixed term, and a fixed term of around 13 months, which you’re locked into, unless you pay an early exit fee. So, less flexible if you want to switch again quickly. For the next tariff, you could save even more. So, let’s get on to that. But before all of that, if you’re finding this video useful, please hit the subscribe button as it really helps out my channel early on. I’ve got some really exciting content all around the electric car space and I wouldn’t want you to miss out on that. So, hit subscribe and with that, let’s get on to the next tariff. The next one is So Energy’s so EV tariff and this one is all about value. The night rate is around 6.5 per kilowatt hour as of the time of recording this video, making it one of the absolute lowest prices out there. The night window again is just like British Gas. So, midnight to 5:00 a.m. And also, the day rate is pretty fair, around 28p per kilowatt hour. So, as expected across all of these tariffs, what makes So, EV perfect is if you’re in a smaller home, maybe it’s just you with one electric car, and you can reliably get your charging done in those 5 hours overnight. It also is great if you’re really costconscious and you really want to just get the cheapest rate overnight. The catch, of course, is that it is just 5 hours, just like the British Gas Tariff. If you need a bit longer, then you might feel a bit restricted in this tariff. Plus, the standing charge is a little bit higher as well. So, you’ll need to do the maths as to see if that 1.4 pence on the charging costs is going to outweigh the little bit more that you’re going to pay with the standing charge. Now, before getting on to the next tariff, I want to explain briefly why companies are able to offer cheaper rates overnight. It’s all to do with the daily demand profile you see here. Basically, it’s how much electricity we use across different times of the day across the UK. If you look at the load curve, you’ll see that lowest demand is actually overnight. Then it ramps up in the morning when people wake up and ramps up again in the early evening when people start cooking and after that it tails back down overnight when people start sleeping. The important part here is that electricity is still generated 24/7 and suppliers want to encourage people to use electricity overnight when the demand is low and that’s where they incentivize us as electric car drivers to charge overnight. And that’s why these tariffs make sense if you drive an electric car. For the electricity grid, it helps balance out those peaks and troughs. And for us electric car drivers, it means that we can charge at a much lower price at like 2 in the morning as opposed to 6 p.m. and you can save up to 75% or even more in some cases. But the next two tariffs actually go kind of against this and work a bit differently. And also they don’t make you wait until midnight. Now next, OOS’s charge anytime tariff. Now OO’s charge anytime tariff is slightly different and it’s not just two different prices you get. It’s an add-on to your existing tariff that specifically applies to your electric car. But it does mean whenever you charge your car, whether it’s morning, afternoon, overnight, the rate that you pay will always be the same at around 7 p per kilowatt hour. As long as you’re using a compatible car and a compatible charger and scheduling the timing through your apps and when you want to get the car ready by, you always get the cheap rate no matter what car you’re charging and when. This is a game changer if you have really odd schedules in the day and the week. Maybe you’re a shift worker. Maybe you need to top up often in the day. And this tariff takes away the stress of thinking and scheduling the charge overnight and hoping it’ll be ready in the morning. Now, the downside of this tariff is that only the car when it’s charging is using that 7 p per kow rate. And it doesn’t apply to the whole home. And also, you do need to have compatible chargers and a compatible car that works alongside it. But for people that do have that, it’s ideal. You just plug it in, you set your departure time in the morning, let’s say, and then OO and the app and everything like that and the charger and the car will all work it out for you. So, you’ll get a fully charged car or 80% charged car depending on how you want to set it up, ready to go when you want to go. The standing charge is a little bit more for my personal circumstances when I did a quote on this compared to the other tariffs on this list, but the normal price per kilowatt hour is slightly lower, so it does work out as balancing out in the end. Now, the next tariff may be more familiar with you, but I’m going to explain how it might not be the best one for you and your circumstances, even when it’s from a well-known supplier. At number two, we’ve got Intelligent Octopus Go. This one is similar in price, around 7p per kilowatt hour, depending on where you live, but works slightly differently. It gives you a 6-h hour cheap electricity window, say between 11:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. And it also applies to your whole home and not just your car, which is obviously the big distinction between OO’s charging options. With OO, only the electricity that’s going into your car from your charger is charged at the lower rate and the rest of your house stays on the normal price. With Octopus, everything in your house will go to the lower rate overnight. So, you can do what I do, which is run all my appliances overnight at the cheaper rate. But with intelligent Octopus Go, if you want to charge your car for a longer period than the 6 hours that they give you, it will be flexible and allow you to charge more if your car needs more charge, which is beyond those 6 hours. And the clever part is the app. So, you connect your car to the compatible charger. You tell it when you need the car for the morning, let’s say when you’re going to work. And then Octopus will automatically schedule the charging at the point where it’s the most greenest energy supply. Before you switch though, you need to consider that your electric car works and you have a compatible charger, which is a dedicated home charger as well, normally with a smart feature. Also, if you override the schedule and want to manually charge your car, let’s say last minute, if you want to boost, that will not be within the 7p per kowatth rate that you’re going to get with Octopus Intelligent Go. But overall, intelligent octopus go is used by lots of different electric car drivers out there, and it’s kind of the well balanced solution, especially if you want to use your appliances overnight as well for get cheaper rates. What I will say as well is that there are some companies that I’ve missed on this list, like Fuse Energy Smart EV Tariff, but it’s not on this list because I’ve used the So Energy So EV tariff as the better option simply because you don’t need a compatible smart charger. Plus, it’s a little bit easier to understand. Now, all of these apps and scheduling and timings and all that does seem a bit complicated, especially when you first drive an electric car. So, the tariff that I actually use and benefits me the most is the one that has the longest overnight rate and one of the cheapest prices out there. So, let me tell you it now. For me, it ticks most boxes because it offers the longest range of time for the off- peak window between midnight and 7 a.m. Plus, it offers one of the best prices of the night rate at 6.7 per kilowatt hour in my current situation where I live. And the day rate is around 28 or 29, which is priced reasonably as well. The contract is usually a 12 months fixed term, but you can also exit it with no exit charges either, which is important for me as you get the certainty of the fixed prices, cheap overnight rates, and if you find a better deal somewhere else, you don’t have to pay to exit. Now, why do I like it is because for me, for my circumstances, I don’t have a home EV wallbox charger. So, it will take typically a lot longer for me to charge using my three pin granny plug charger overnight. And I can just schedule it within this car. I can just tell it to charge between just after midnight and just before 7 am. And when I come back in the morning, it’s fully charged and I’m ready to go. And of course, as it’s getting colder, you can do this beautiful thing with electric cars and you can preheat the cabin in the winter. So, it doesn’t use up any additional battery charge before you set off in the morning. It’s really simple to set up and switch to them and you don’t need a special charger or a special car or anything like that. You just get the same household electricity cost at 6.7 per kilowatt hour overnight. Now I have no association with this company at all. But after researching a lot online, this is the one that I personally use and recommend and it’s called Eon Next Drive. But with Eon Next as well, an added bonus from me is if you sign up using the link in description, you actually get 50 bonus or reward on your account. But also make sure that when you switch from your old supplier that they refund you any credit you have on your account and make sure to follow up if they haven’t done that within let’s say 30 days because I had that situation with my previous supplier and I had to go and manually email them and tell them that I wanted my massive amount of credit on my account refunded. With all of these tariffs though, you do actually have to have a smart meter and often a lot of these companies will actually install one for free for you and you just need to book that in for you when you want to switch to the new supplier. Let me know in the comments which one works best for you and then watch this video next. Be sure to subscribe and see you on the next one.
Today we’re finding out which established energy companies have the best rates for charging your Electric Car at home!
Best of all, some don’t even need a compatible car or charger! Especially #1million
Let me know which one you have or would choose in the comments!
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