Meet the new Charge Anytime!

Another long term OVO customer that’s being forced to jump ship! I had just decided to stay as Octopus seemed less flexible  (end time has to be between 4am and 11am I believe). But this mad change is forcing me to leave! 
 

 To add insult to injury I see that VW and Volvo drivers can stay on 7p/kWh so the rest of us would just be subsidising them. No thanks!! 

And another customer and EV user here that feels totally ripped off by OVO. 

These subscriptions just are ludicrous, especially if you do most of your charging at home, wake up OVO, you can't just double your tariff and not expect customers to be walking away from you as am energy supplier. 

What a joke. They obviously don't want EV drivers as customers.

I mean, a slight increase is a pain but doubling, that's just insane. 

This has driven me to switch from OVO too, after nearly 8 years as a customer - out of principle.  
 

• They’ve removed my Ohme integration - and the Ohme app is just better than the OVO apps (old and new)
• The new OVOCharge app adds loads of unnecessary clutter I have no need of - I just want an app that is focussed on managing the charging of my cars
• Doubling the EV smart charging rate for zero practical benefit to me.

I actually don’t care if I end up paying a little extra by moving suppliers - OVO have just destroyed my locality to them, because they’ve shown no loyalty to me as a long term customer.  Will probably switch to Octopus, once I’ve checked the alternatives.

I suspected this was coming when I saw the Ovo survey 2 months ago. Like many others I said I would be off if they implemented fixed plans at inflated rates without a PAYG option. So the 14p figure at least makes me pause to check viable alternatives before switching, despite my outrage.

The ‘green start-up’ marketing that attracted me to Ovo years ago has been stripped away to reveal their true colours. Like all the other retail energy companies they are parasitical bean-counters and marketers who add nothing of value to the supply chain. Instead they look for ways to maximise profit by locking customers in to long-term fixes and insurance-based ‘services’ supplied by the cheapest contractor they can source at the time. Sooner they are all renationalised the better.

Charge Anytime was just another marketing ploy. But with almost 4 years of EV ownership behind me, I’m now looking seriously at the costs involved. On low mileage I’ll never recoup the added purchase cost, even on 7p a mile. On high mileage I wouldn’t trust the range in rural areas. I’m on the cusp of changing car anyway. Why should I try to be green when the whole system is geared only to bottom-line?

I shall probably revert to a mild hybrid ICE, then switch to the cheapest energy deal I can find in the market. In the meantime I shall offset some of this latest price hike by opting out of other ‘green’ cons like Greener Energy and the Ovo Foundation.

I was about to calculate and post these also (nice job). Nicely cuts through the disingenuous OVO article, I expect ‘ Hi, we’re doubling (or more) your EV charging rate! ‘ would not fly ...

I’m struggling to see what the incentive is meant to be to sign-up for any of the fixed tariffs? when all are more expensive than the new (double the price) PAYG.

Sticking with PAYG means you pay 14p/kWh on what you consume as I read it, with say the standard/fixed you run the risk of paying the full (house!) p/kWh rate if you exceed the state KW limit, so there is a risk of running up higher costs. 

Who cares about the ‘ happy meal ‘ tat that comes with the tariffs ...

The choice seems to be:

       1. stay with OVO and suck up paying double the current rate

2. Jump ship to Octopus and the hope they don’t follow suite in a month or two

Or am I missing something?

has anyone seen or tried this 

https://www.scottishpower.co.uk/ev-optimise

Scottish power 24/7 anytime one, its 10p, but it is anytime charging

Ovo should have said something like: 
Hi guys, you're not gonna like this, but we think we have to charge you more for Charge Anytime. The current 7p tariff means you're running costs are up to 6 times lower than petrol car users. That's a lot. It also encourages solar owners to export their surplus energy instead of putting it into their EV's. There's also a big price difference between charging at home and charging at public chargers. We're trying to balance things a bit more and reduce behavior that is not really sustainable. Even with the 14p tariff you'll still be better off.

Still not good, but more honest...

I see many of us have expressed our feelings on trustpilot, and all OVO see fit to do is tag them all with a condescending response pointing you at the plan options….which as others have calculated above are an even worse deal.

Also wonder if the other “good” reviews that are suddenly appearing are an attempt by OVO to abuse trustpilot ratings and try to offset the 1 stars.

After this debacle I wouldn’t put anything past them in their tactics.

The thing about this that infuriates me most is how incredibly dishonest it is.

I signed up via a Volvo promotion only a few weeks ago, calculating that it would benefit me to pay an exit fee elsewhere due to the savings I’d make over the year of the fixed-term contract with Ovo. Those savings have just been completely wiped out, and now I’m also forced to move elsewhere just prior to the October price cap increase so everything’s much more expensive than the contract I had a reasonable expectation would be satisfied.

Given I’ve been materially disadvantaged, I’ll assume the exit fee will be waived, but how about compensation for the rest? It’s not a vast sum but we’re still talking low hundreds through absolutely no fault of our own.

The fact that Ovo were promoting Charge Anytime deals only days/weeks ago, knowing full well this change was coming, and the timing of the change in relation to the price cap increase, strikes me as completely dishonest and I’ll be complaining to the Ombudsman and Volvo (for what good it will do me).

Where are the mods? Over a hundred posts and nothing...

Previously you couldn't post anything without a sanctimonious, obvious, condescending,  inane or company-bot response from one of the mods.

They've obviously been told not to pour petrol on the fire and refrain from posting while the nutter EV enthusiasts (us, their  [ex]customers) vent their fury. It'll blow over and everything will return to business as usual.

In fact this forum will probably be wound up and relaunched ("evolved") as anything any mod says from now on will result in a avalanche of posts referring to Charge Anytime.

I've left for Octopus (who must be laughing at OVO's Ratner/Musk blunder).

Others join the queue...

I've already been told off for suggesting to a new ev owner on another thread he's better off leaving OVO now 😂

Agreed. I would also prefer an honest ‘ sorry, out costs have risen so we need to double yours ‘, rather than all the fluffy nonsense to dress it up as something positive; which clearly it is not.

Oh well …We’re new to having an EV so I can say I enjoyed 7p/kWh from JULY>NOV 2025 but got in just as the bubble burst. 

You can still enjoy 7p/kw just NOT with OVO. Join the disgruntled masses and move

Well folks, I’ve now made up my mind and I’m off to pastures new.

Thanks to the info here from ​@Bobbych , I’ve just come off the phone to Scottish Power and got a nice fixed-price energy deal. Like many others, you have to get on-supply from them first, and then transfer to an EV tariff once you’re there.

They actually do 2 EV tariffs, an overnight 12-5am at 7.4p called EV Saver or an anytime-style tariff at 10p called EV Optimise.

EV Optimise is basically the same as Charge Anytime, - it’s a bolt-on onto your basic tariff, so doesn’t load the cost back onto your basic electricity. My spreadsheet tells me I’ll be significantly better off with this than staying with OVO.

Do you know if the Optimise tariff supports 3-pin charging? We weren't able to install a charger here so had an outdoor socket installed on a separate circuit. Hence Charge Anytime through the Volvo app has been ideal, the few weeks we've benefited from it. Our transition to EV has not been smooth...

Thanks for the info another one to add to the spreadsheet

saw this comment on a forum on Octopus from their staff, on charging with multi cars on the INTELIGENT pack

 it is £30 per EV, so if you had two EVs integrated on our Intelligent Octopus Drive Pack tariff, this would then be £60 a month.

so with OVO at 7p, i have 3 cars and currently its costing me £49 to cover 2500 miles

so if I move to Octopus, they want £180 for 3 cars.  

if I stay with OVO and pay 14p, my cost goes to £100

Grass is not always greener

Hi ​@Atgett  I don’t, sorry. 

Try phoning them. I was astounded that they actually answered the phone almost immediately!

Ah, yeah I asked because I didn't fancy an hour wait on hold but this is encouraging, I'll give them a call. Thanks.

Whilst I agree that OVO seem to have lost the plot, I have just had a quote from Octopus. Looking at their tariffs based on my previous usage Octopus will cost £277 per year more than my current OVO cost. That equates to nearly 2000 kWh of charging at 14p per kWh.

Moving seems the right step on principal, but am I cutting off my nose to spite my face…….?

Or am I missing something?

shame it only does 1 car, i have 3 so no good for me

I’m not sure what you’ve got the quote for, but I suspect this is either based on a simple tariff and not a smart tariff, or has used generic assumptions that may not fit your personal usage profile. Probably worth digging a little deeper when comparing. Unfortunately the more complicated the tariffs are made the harder it is to do direct comparisons.

Not sure how you get to £180? I assume more than one EV requires you to charge out of off-peak times? The way it works with 2 EVs is you link one to the account that you charge at anytime, but are still able to make use of any standard off-peak times to charge your second EV. You would need to work out what proportion of your second or third EV charging would fall within peak price times and then run the calculations.

Hi ​@DWF I also got a quote from Octopus for Intelligent Go. For me, not only was it more expensive than staying put with OVO, it’s also a variable tariff and will simply get more expensive over time. At least my OVO deal was fixed. I can’t help thinking Octopus’s supposed benefits are actually smoke and mirrors marketing!

​@MikeyB There was also a fixed version available until recently, but the variable generally works out cheaper at present. Remember that any ‘quote’ you had won’t be able to predict how many additional slots will be given or at what times, to allow you to reduce the cost of your household usage. If you plug in in the evenings you should find a lot of the evening slots are also at the cheap rate as your charger will be helping to balance the grid. 

As with everything, each tariff has its pros and cons. It’s down to you to work out which suits your needs the best. It could well be that sticking with the OVO offering allows certainty in when you would be charging and maybe this is more advantageous than pricing.