Can I charge my Electric car on Economy 10?

Hey ​@mryanski 

Welcome to the OVO online community 😊

This might be a good one for our community member ​@Blastoise186 who is somewhat an expert when it comes to smart meters. It would be helpful to know where you live so we can give tailored advice (please don’t post personal details like street address or postcode). 

The engineer tried 2 seperate smart meters, but as neither of them would connect to the network, he reinstalled the original economy 10 meter.

The village I live in has recently had an estate of new houses built and these have been fitted with smart meters but also do not appear to be working the residents are having issues.

i have no problem with having a smart meter installed if it gives me the option of being able to swap to an EV tariff but not if it is going to cause similar issues. Just another real world issue that is going to prevent EV use!

You forgot to tell us where you live. What’s the first part of your postcode?

Apologies, post code is DG7

Ahhh… I see. Rural area of Scotland… That’ll be Arqiva then…

Bear with us while we dig into this!

The joys of living in the sticks!

Thank you :)

Ok, sorry for the wait - I had to think pretty hard about this one.

Unfortunately, without a WAN connection, you’re basically locked out of ALL EV Tariffs and OVO Charge Anytime. These tariffs require a fully communicating Smart Meter for them to function at all and without the data, it’s basically impossible for them to run. Work is ongoing to make this work in more parts of the UK - especially up in Scotland - so I think it’s ultimately just a waiting game tbh.

The best you can do for now is stay on E10, get OVO to fit a pre-programmed Smart Meter and configure the EV Charging to run around the Off-Peak hours. Once WAN coverage is available - and working - you will have far more options.

Sorry if it’s not the answer you were hoping for, but I’d rather be honest upfront than try and hard sell you, only to drop you off a cliff down the road.

Not at all, I appreciate the answer and thank you for your help. Car is due changing next year so I think it will be petrol powered while they are still available. E10 works fine for all of my home power so would hate to do anything that would jeopardise that! 

As an EV owner myself since 2021 it’s still worth getting an EV even if you only have an E10 tariff. At, say, 20p per unit and about 4 miles/kWh (unless you buy an Audi e-tron - couldn't resist the dig there) so 5 p/mile compared with 13-15p/mile for petrol for a similar sized car. Yes, EVs are a bit more expensive atm but the fuel saving is very real unless you have to charge a lot away from home. Some people use E7 as their preferred method of charging as it's so simple and reliable.

Be warned though, once you've driven an EV for a while you won't want to go back and if you live in a hilly area the contrast is even greater.

Peter