Octopus Energy launches ‘unlimited’ charging subscription

Octopus' 'Intelligent Drive Pack' is being billed as the UK's first 'unlimited' EV charging subscription. It costs £30 per month and enables EV drivers to charge their vehicles during set hours scheduled by Octopus.

The subscription will be available as a bolt-on for Octopus Energy home customers with a standard Fixed or Flexible power tariff. Users need a smart meter and one of 280 compatible EV brands and home chargers. Once signed up, subscribers will be able to charge one EV during the provider’s ‘scheduled hours’, which it says will typically be overnight. Users will be asked to choose a ‘ready by’ time between 4-11AM, and Octopus’ smart charging system will prepare the vehicle for that time.

Octopus states that if customers want to charge outside of the scheduled hours, they will be given a ‘boost’ function on their app. This will charge the vehicle at the normal home energy rate outside of the £30 subscription fee – so, while the subscription will certainly make things cheaper, it isn’t quite ‘unlimited’ at all times of day. However, the company estimates that those on the subscription will pay two-fifths of what ICE drivers spend each month on fuel.

The Intelligent Drive Pack will sit alongside Octopus’ original EV tariff, Intelligent Octopus Go, which provides charging rates at £0.07p/kWh as well as six hours of reduced cost energy for the rest of the home. This tariff is already available in the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, New Zealand and the US, so it could be the case that the subscription offering could someday make its way over to these countries as well. Those already on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff will be able to retain their existing service or choose to switch to the Intelligent Drive Pack.

In a statement, Octopus Energy’s CPO Rebecca Dibb-Simkin said: “You can’t even get a nice meal out at a restaurant for £30 anymore – but you can get a whole month’s worth of driving! Intelligent Drive Pack is a completely new way to save – perfect for drivers who want predictability, flexibility and great value rolled into one. It’s another step towards making electric cars the obvious choice for everyone.”

octopus.energy

24 Comments

about „Octopus Energy launches ‘unlimited’ charging subscription“

Romeo Moldovan

25.04.2025 um 22:05

You'd have to use about 6000kWh per year to actually make it cheaper compared to 7p/kWh . A Tesla model 3 or Y with an average of 250Wh/mile would have to do over 24k miles to make it worth it. Ok make it 20k miles if we deduct the energy usage of the rest of the systems on the car (an exaggeration but whatever for the sake of argument) a porche cayenne is a lot less efficient for example so the break even point would be 15k miles a year. I don't think there's many people who would actually benefit from this bolt on.In reality if you do such level of milage you'll probably start using a bit of the public charging infrastructure so probably.I applaud the effort of trying to innovate and incentives people to take on EV. In reality this is really an undercover get rich quick scheme by octopus. Kind of like those gym memberships that everyone buys in January and pay throughout the year but about 50% of people stop using their memberships by end of April.That said, the Intelligent Go tariff is still the only tariff any EV owner should have. By far the best one out there and no other supplies have even come close to knocking it of the top podium step. Thank you for that Octopus.

M K

25.04.2025 um 22:16

It's a shame that the industry do not provide the same tarrifs / rates for EV owners (or potential) without a home car charger.I think they would see an uplift in members if they did.

Bob@yahoo.com

25.04.2025 um 22:35

It's £20 a month

John

25.04.2025 um 23:08

It's actually £20 per month.

Dai

25.04.2025 um 23:17

It's £20.. and it's limited to 1 car very good tho

phil littlewood

25.04.2025 um 23:35

Does this mean you just pay £30 a month and charge as much as you like in the month ?

About To Get An Electric Car

25.04.2025 um 23:47

At £30 a month, compared with £0.07/kWh on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff, you'd need to charge in excess of 428.6kWh per month. If most electric cars do 3-4 miles/kWh that equates to 1,286-1,714 miles per month, or 15,429- 20,571 miles per year. That's a lot more than the 7,400-mile UK average, and more even than your typical 10,000-12,500 mile ICE service interval. Not sure it will be worth it for most people.

Robert Brooks

26.04.2025 um 06:42

Clearly, Rebecca Dibb-Simkey, has never been to Spoons!? Yes, it's not technically a restaurant, but who cares these days!?I don't know why they've put the comparison in there with ICE car drivers, running an EV on an off peak rate for electricity saves a fortune anyway! At 7p/kwh for a 5 hour nightly charge on Octopus Go, say with a 7kw charge rate, that's around 35kwh's per 5 hour charge, so £2.45 per 5 hour charge! For ease of working out we'll round it to £2.50. So, someone on the subscription will be saving, only after their 12th, 5 hour nightly charge! So a good deal for higher mileage users, only then!?

Justin

26.04.2025 um 06:44

Clever marketing plus great for taxi drivers etc. I myself only do about 1000-1200 miles a month, so no need for this, Octopus Intelligent Go @7p means those 1000+ miles only cost me around £17 (so, under 2p a mile). But for anyone consistently doing over 2000 miles a month, could save them a bit more.

David Hughes

26.04.2025 um 08:23

Absolute brilliance yet again from Octopus Energy,the very best there is on the market.

Al Reynolds

26.04.2025 um 10:37

I drive about 15000 miles a year in my Ioniq and charge up in the Octopus Go 5 hour window every night. Conservatively, I average 4.5 miles/kWh over the year and I pay 8.5 pence/kWh for the Octopus Go rate, so my car costs about 1.9 pence/mile to run, or about £285 per year. I think I would need to be driving more than 19000 miles a year for a £30 a month package to be better value.BUT if I was only getting 2.5 miles per kWh on the Octopus Go 8.5 pence per kWh I would only have to be doing 11000 miles per year to make this worthwhile.And if I was getting 2.5 miles per kWh on a standard 25 pence per kWh then I would only need to do 3600 miles per year to make this worthwhile.I suspect this package is aimed mainly at ICE drivers to show them that they could be spending less on travel costs, and electric drivers with inefficient cars who are on expensive tariffs.It is an interesting offering though.

Mr T Watters

26.04.2025 um 11:58

Wil the Peugeot e298 be included in the offering? It isn't in the intelligent go offering

John McMullen

26.04.2025 um 12:25

Great idea, nice to see such inovation.

Ian

26.04.2025 um 15:03

The tariff is available in the UK, but not all over the UK. In Northern Ireland, the cheapest night time rate is about 15p, double that of this Octopus rate. We are stuck with a limited service monopoly unfortunately.

Mick Bird

26.04.2025 um 16:23

The current system has excluded both my vehicle- Kia Niro EV and my Pod point charger from Intelligent Octopus Go. I wonder if this new exciting plan will do so?

R Mcnally

26.04.2025 um 22:06

Oh Octupus energy can charge me £200 a month for G and E for a 1 bedroom flat with half the radiatiors turnes off but if you’ve an electric car ya can charge it as much as you want for £30 a month! Interesting! I wouldn’t mind if ya wore a mask when ya robbed me!!

Mark

26.04.2025 um 22:39

Yawn what about us who can not have a home charger and have to use 3pin socket

Dave

27.04.2025 um 10:13

30 pounds a month, only good for high mileage users.

John Cantellow

27.04.2025 um 13:34

On Intelligent Go I pay 4x7p for 1/4 of my dynamic charge. Problem reported 4 March, 6 emails, no action. The same problem would apply to 'unlimited' charge.

Nazrul

27.04.2025 um 14:44

Good service, but need emergency contact for weekend

Steve

27.04.2025 um 19:39

Brilliant. So all other domestic users will be subsidising those that are rich enough to afford an EV and fortunate enough to be able to home charge. It would be of more use to drop normal energy prices.

Roger willsher

27.04.2025 um 21:20

Try doing cheap stuff for people who don't drive instead of drivers nicking all the goodies. Just more gimmicks from Octopus the kings of gimmicks. Wasters.

28.04.2025 um 09:15

Whilst it sounds like a really good idea, they need a tariff that is good for an EV and heat pump. Currently I'm on a good rate for my heat pump but I can't get a good EV rate without compromising such that the heat pump costs shoot up. The heating obviously needs to run during daylight hours. Thoughts on this?

Russel Hill

28.04.2025 um 10:22

Most other EV charging companies have offered a similar subscription service to high mileage drivers for some time. This is just Octopus playing catch-up, but it's more limited because you can only benefit by charging at home, not at public charging areas like the other subscription offerings.