OVO launches combined home + public EV charging subscription in UK
The product is set to go live on November 4th , when customers will be able to activate one of two subscription tiers. The Standard tier costs £27.50 per month and covers 700 miles per month via smart charging as well as vouchers equivalent to 600 miles worth of charging on public chargers. This also encompasses charger insurance against damage, theft or vandalism.
Then, there’s the Premium tier; clocking in at £37.50 per month, it provides a home charging allowance of 1000 miles per month plus the same public voucher allowance as the Standard tier, i.e. 600 miles. Additionally, the Premium tier covers free annual battery health checks, EV usage insights via ClearWatt, and a 15 per cent discount on KwikFit tyres.
One unusual aspect of this is the fact that it expresses charging allowances in miles, rather than kWh. This essentially introduces a variable rate depending on vehicle efficiency, meaning more efficient EVs will be cheaper to charge than others.
Details on the voucher scheme also remain scant – as it runs through the OVO Charge app, it’s safe to assume that drivers will have access to the 50,000 or so public charging points covered by this network, but it’s unclear which networks will support them or how the pricing of individual chargers will affect the usage of vouchers.
Besides the new subscription, OVO will update its existing pay-as-you-go plan for lower-mileage customers, which will allow users to pay 14p/kWh for smart home charging and gives them access to public charging vouchers.
The small print here: OVO is actually doubling its existing smart home charging rate, which currently stands at 7p/kWh, suggesting they may be looking to incentivise a switch to the subscription package. Alex Thwaites, director of EV at OVO, said: “We need to make EVs the easy choice for drivers. This means making them super affordable to run and simple to charge.”
Interestingly, OVO is billing the offering as the UK’s first combine home + public EV charging subscription. While OVO’s Charge Anytime will indeed be one of the first to incorporate home and public charging under a single subscription, it’s not too dissimilar to Octopus Energy’s offering.
This enables customers of the Intelligent Drive Pack (unlimited smart charging at home) to gain access to discounts on public charging when using Octopus’ Electroverse charging network – in effect, more or less a similar offering combining smart charging, a public roaming network, plus discounts.
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