EV CAR QUESTION

Hi ​@colin1234 ,

Welcome to the OVO Forum! The name’s Blastoise186 and I’m one of the regulars around here.

First thing I’ll say is that we actually don’t recommend the Ohme chargers these days and prefer to steer folks away from that brand due to too many issues we’ve seen on the Forum with them. Ohme deliberately pulled the plug on Charge Anytime support last year and made a real mess of that process - there’s also concerns flying around about long-term reliability of their units so I can’t recommend them at this time.

Just to mention… OVO Charge Anytime requires a smartphone or tablet running Android or iOS/iPadOS to use the OVO Charge app. It does NOT support Kindle Fire tablets at this time. Please make sure you have a compatible device handy!

If you’re open to an alternative Charger, you can find the list of the ones OVO currently supports over at https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/charge-anytime-cars-and-chargers . Out of these, Hypervolt, EVEC and NexBlue have shown very serious commitment to seriously good customer service and they sometimes with us Forum regulars to get answers quickly if needed. They’re all definitely worth exploring and you can buy some of them via OVO if you wish with installation included - https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/smart-charger is the link for that. You can also go direct to the manufacturer if you prefer, it’s completely down to what you feel comfortable with. They’re all decent options and all of them support Charge Anytime.

The Kia EV3 does support Charge Anytime, but it’s still in Beta status due to historical instability issues with Kia/Hyundai BlueLink. All trims should have internet connectivity and your local Kia dealer can help you get that set up regardless of whether you’re on Motability because the local dealer you pick up the car from is responsible for that part of customer service anyway.

OVO’s team are also on hand if you need them - 0330 175 9678 or chargeanytime@ovo.com gets you straight through and you’ve got the Forum too if you just need some general advice! :)

Hope that helps. Any questions, feel free to reply back on this forum thread.

Hi  Blastoise186

Thanks for the quick reply

Sadly Motabilty only seem to supply the ohme charger and as they pay to buy and install for free i cant really see paying £500 0R £1000 extra an option.

You say the EV3 has internet connectivity and i will get the dealer to sort that for me when i pick up

I am alittle concerned that the kia is only in Beta,and you dont support Ohme (really want everything to be as smooth as possible)

I will look around at suppliers who support Ohme and see if the charging costs are similer and 

see what is availiable

thank you for your time

cheers

colin

No worries - just to mention however that Ohme hasn’t proven a great partner to other suppliers either as they’ve shown themselves to be difficult to work with. I’m not sure you’ll get a great experience with it regardless of who you go with.

Kia integration with Charge Anytime is stable enough to use but the Beta label is OVO’s way of saying that it may sometimes be a bit unstable due to specific quirks. OVO wouldn’t release it if it was completely useless, it just means you may need to speak to the team a bit more often but Kia appears to have been more stable recently.

Big warning however - Charge Anytime is the only Smart Charging offer where it’s not locked to your whole-home tariff as OVO lets you pair it as an add-on to basically any OVO tariff of your choosing. All others lock you to a specific tariff so please factor this in as some of those may make you worse off for everything else and, as a result, may swallow any potential savings.

Thank you for that,its more complicated than i imagined  lol.

Im not sure there is anyway i can ask Motabilty if they can install a different charger but i will ask.

I never realised it was so difficult, might have stayed with a petrol if i`d have looked into it a bit closer before ordering.

Many thanks again for your time any very usefull answers

cheers

Colin

That’s what we’re here for! :)

IIRC Motability has some kind of bulk deal thing going on with Ohme, so you might not be able to get them to offer anything else as it might be some exclusive thing where they’re locked to doing Ohme only.

I can dig into it if you’d like me to, but the last time I checked it was a locked down thing.

​@colin1234 I have no wish to send you off to another supplier but my information is that Motability only install Ohme. Ohme seems to work well with Octopus so it would be useful to have a look at their tariffs. They do discounted smart tariffs (Octopus/Kraken controls the charging) and discounted EV tariffs (non-smart fixed hours which I think are 00:30 to 06:30) which you can also use for home use. Some EVers buy a home battery and run off that for some of the time rather than the peak rate.

Rates used to be 6p/28p before the Middle East crisis and they are now more like 9/30p. For a single car it is a very usable tariff which can save you some money compared with the SVT/Fixed Price. Happy tariff hunting! Even if you don’t stay with OVO you are very welcome to post questions of here and we’ll do our best to help.

Peter

Thanks both for the replies

Peter E

I did contact Motabilty and you are correct they only at the moment supply the Ohme charger.

It really is a minefield this electric vehicle charging,and the govenment want more EV use, can understand why that might not be happening if this situation is typical.

I will look at octopus, but suspect that will just be another “can of worms “ to be opened

Thanks again both for your help

cheers

Colin

Hey ​@colin1234 

I’m glad to see a couple of our community members have already stopped by with lots of really helpful advice ahead of getting set up. I hope you’ve found it useful and helps you make the ever so tricky choice, we know everyone’s lifestyle is different, so it’s always good to make sure you’ve checked out all of the options. 

Do let us know what you end up going with, and how things go when the EV and charger arrive.😊