[curl666]

Hello All,

In the last month I have purchased a Nissan Leaf as our family car. (I have a van for work)

I am an Octopus Energy customer and looking to switch to one of their EV friendly tariffs.
Octopus Go or Agile

The leaf is a 24kw battery model approx 80 mile range with the standard 3.6kw charger.
With the current lockdown the car is used for the school run and shopping, so we have found it doesn't need charging every night. How ever I expect this to change once the lockdown has ended.

Given that I cannot charge the car to 100% during the 4 hour reduced tariff, due to the 3.6kw on board car charger am I better off on the Agile tariff?

Or if I charged every day for the 4 hours off peak?

The only downside of the Agile tariff is that I have young children, so expect to have the usual family usage between their peak hours. But I wouldn't say particularly high energy usage devices, oil central heating, no electric shower, gas hob but electric oven. I could adjust most appliances washing machine, tumble, dishwasher etc outside of their peak.

Thoughts or help appreciated
Many thanks

 

[mad_rich]

Are you charging from a granny lead, or a 7kW charger. If you're on a granny lead, it will only pull 2.4kW I think. On a proper (7kW) home charger, the car will pull 3.6kW.

Check with Octopus if you can get the 5 hour version of Go (slightly more expensive at 5.5p).

I'm not sure what the charging losses are like with the Leaf, perhaps someone who has one can confirm, but you could maybe get 10-12kWh in every night on the cheap rates if you're using a granny lead, or 15-18kWh if you're able to draw 3.6kW.

My only power hungry device is the oven. I found it was really difficult to avoid cooking during the peak, but YMMV,

 

[Tandy0]

I think I'd take the four hour Go, and charge to 80% every night. (Or as near as it will get.)

 

[dk6780]

From previous experience I'd say that you will get about 17% per hour charging a "24kWh" (in reality probably only 18-20 kWh and a charging rate net of losses closer to 3kW) , meaning 6+ hours for a full charge. But in reality you'll rarely arrive home with zero charge so either 4 hours of Go or 5 hours of Go Faster make sense. Agile is best if you don't need to charge on a particular night and can choose the best day which seems unlikely.

 

[firetrax]

Agile rate are quite high at the moment. Go with Go and you can always change to Agile whenever you want to.

 

[curl666]

Thanks for replies.

I’ll try out the Go tariff.

 

[Gerald.Tomson]

Thanks for replies.

I’ll try out the Go tariff.

Don't forget the Ohme charger lead offer when you are a octopus customer £199, its handy if you decide on Agile tariff

 

[curl666]

Transfer to octopus go complete!

Don't forget the Ohme charger lead offer when you are a octopus customer £199, its handy if you decide on Agile tariff

Yes I like the look of the Ohme kit. Tempted to pick one up at the price, just incase the offer disappears before I make my mind up on which charge point to install.

I completed the ev charging course this week, so looking to register with OLEV to get onto the grant installer scheme. Whilst the Ohme doesn't qualify for the grant, its still a good buy without at £199.

I have recently picked up some solar panels, which would be nice to smart charge the car at their output but the ohme doesn't yet have this capability. But I have seen Octopus offer the EO mini pro2, which does cater for solar.

 

[i-s]

As @dk6780 said, in your 4 hour "go" period you will get about 20% per hour.

I used to use a 3.6kW charging leaf to commute 25 miles round trip per day, and I would charge 2 hours at work each day (workplace charging tokens gave 2 hour access) and then one 4 hour charge during the week as 2 hours wasn't quite covering it.

So, I think you'll only struggle to fit in the 4 hours if you are driving more than 50 miles per day on average.

You can also get the 5 hour go faster tariff as @mad_rich said.

 

[DoctorSpludge]

Agile has been perfect for me because I can delay my charging if needed, if I was charging every few days I'd be on Go. The Ohme cable pulls the half-hourly prices from Octopus too and adjusts when it charges which saves a bit of money too, obviously that wouldn't help with Go.

I think it's more about car use than it is about how much electricity you can stuff into the battery at any given moment.

 

[curl666]

Thanks for the advice.

I’ve switched to the Go tariff and setup the charge timer in the car.

Another nice saving and benefit moving to an electric car!

No longer paying £300 a year tax and suffering 32mpg.