EVs an expensive mistake?

[KeithB1]

We've had our plug-in for almost 2 years now and I'm wondering whether to revert back to petrol/diesel. Before buying the car which we got at a very good price, I did my research and calculations based on the relative prices of electricity and petrol and was happy I'd be saving a worthwhile amount of money on running costs. Since then everything has gone the wrong way. Electricity costs have rocketed and although they've just come down by about 10% I'm still paying about 70% more than 2 yrs ago. I don't know how much petrol/diesel have gone up , but not 70%!.

Now it's coming up to insurance renewal time and so I've consulted 1 of the comparison sites only to find the cheapest quote from a company I've never heard of is over double what I paid last year and the figure from my current insurer-LV- is nearly 4x last year's figure. I presume this is as a result of a recent report I found mentioned on Youtube which says EVs take longer to repair, are more expensive to repair and have to be "quarantined" in storage pending repair because they're dangerous. Apparently if you have an accident in an EV you're not supposed to touch it because of the danger of electric shock from the high voltage electrics. What a mess. And HMG says all new cars must be electric by 2030.

[3puddings]

All new cars being electric by 2030 will not happen in my opinion.

[XADE]

We've had our plug-in for almost 2 years now and I'm wondering whether to revert back to petrol/diesel. Before buying the car which we got at a very good price, I did my research and calculations based on the relative prices of electricity and petrol and was happy I'd be saving a worthwhile amount of money on running costs. Since then everything has gone the wrong way. Electricity costs have rocketed and although they've just come down by about 10% I'm still paying about 70% more than 2 yrs ago. I don't know how much petrol/diesel have gone up , but not 70%!.

Now it's coming up to insurance renewal time and so I've consulted 1 of the comparison sites only to find the cheapest quote from a company I've never heard of is over double what I paid last year and the figure from my current insurer-LV- is nearly 4x last year's figure. I presume this is as a result of a recent report I found mentioned on Youtube which says EVs take longer to repair, are more expensive to repair and have to be "quarantined" in storage pending repair because they're dangerous. Apparently if you have an accident in an EV you're not supposed to touch it because of the danger of electric shock from the high voltage electrics. What a mess. And HMG says all new cars must be electric by 2030.

If you're charging your car at home you should be on an EV friendly tariff with someone like Octopus Energy. I don't own an EV but have recently switched to their 'Agile' tariff.

The prices for the last 3 weekends have been in the negative overnight, meaning if I had an EV, they would be paying me basically to charge my car. Even when the prices are not this good, most evenings/nights are very low. I've cut my electricity bill in half just by being on Agile, and moving some things like dishwasher/washing machine to nights/early mornings.

You do need a smart meter obviously, which everyone should at least be aiming to get nowadays, and the prices will go up over winter most likely. They also offer another tariff which doesn't change every 30mins, but every 24hours instead. This has been so popular that they only open up every so often and added around 50,000 customers the last time they did.

Agile Price Summary for July:

You can view current and previous prices here, they are broken down into 30min intervals: https://agileprices.co.uk/

Battery storage is also another additional option to the above, as with charging your car in 'off peak' times, you could do the same with a home battery with or without solar panels.

The switching process is incredibly easy nowadays as well, this took 2 days.

[Philr]

What is the standing charge on this Agile tariff?

[XADE]

What is the standing charge on this Agile tariff?

Slightly lower than the average I believe, around 47p/day.

I was referred by a friend, so each person received £50 bill credit too. I'd share here but probably a little frowned upon..

[KeithB1]

Thanks for that XADE. We are with British Gas where we transferred to when our previous provider went bust. At our level of usage we would save £1/mnth on BG's "electric driver" tariff as although the off peak rate is cheaper than the std rate we're on, the rest of the time the rate is higher than the std rate.

I've just looked at the Agile tariff and it looks very attractive but there is a warning that the rate could go as high as 100p/kwh! Did you compile a record of your hrly usage before switching to make sure you would benefit and if so how did you do that? I have to admit I don't know my way around our smart meter, I only had it installed to get a slightly cheaper tariff and don't really know what info it can provide or indeed how to access the info. I'd need an "idiot's guide"!

[XADE]

Thanks for that XADE. We are with British Gas where we transferred to when our previous provider went bust. At our level of usage we would save £1/mnth on BG's "electric driver" tariff as although the off peak rate is cheaper than the std rate we're on, the rest of the time the rate is higher than the std rate.

I've just looked at the Agile tariff and it looks very attractive but there is a warning that the rate could go as high as 100p/kwh! Did you compile a record of your hrly usage before switching to make sure you would benefit and if so how did you do that? I have to admit I don't know my way around our smart meter, I only had it installed to get a slightly cheaper tariff and don't really know what info it can provide or indeed how to access the info. I'd need an "idiot's guide"!

There's a wide range of info you can use, I was sick of being charged by Shell Energy and previously British Gas for things I just do not use, their standard rates are a joke. If prices do go up to higher levels (they have rarely been near the warning prices) you can simply drop back onto one of their other tariffs. You cannot just swap straight back onto Agile and Tracker though, as there's waiting lists, and it would be cheating the system to do so.

Tariffs worth looking at:

Agile - Tracks wholesale electricity prices + Octopus Energy's profit. Prices change every 30mins, but you are notified the previous day about the following days prices.
Tracker - Tracks wholesale electricity prices + Octopus Energy's profit. Prices are the same all day, but you are notified the previous day about the following days prices.

I was probably a being a bit generous with saying I cut the bill in half, but I am saving probably 50%, with gas included compared to Shell Energy.

You either look at the previous data, or I put my smart meter info (this info is public data already so dont worry) into the Octopus Compare app:

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/octopus-c ... 1545004095
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... n_GB&gl=US

This site holds all previous and current prices for most of the 'changeable' tariffs, so you can look at prices for previous periods: https://mysmartenergy.uk/Download-Data/Yorkshire

The app will go through this with you.

You will be able to compare your usage on different Octopus tariffs, as if you were already with them. Example of mine for yesterday, against their Flexible tariff which is pretty much their standard:

Remember I don't have an EV either.. it's definitely worth looking into though. Obviously prices CAN change but there's also a fall back if they do.

I'm not an expert on energy, however I am a bit of a techie for data, my understanding is this: It is cheaper for companies like Octopus to buy energy at off peak times, hence the encouragement to charge battery's/cars and use appliances in off peaks hours. They then pass on the savings after their own profits to the customer.

[KeithB1]

I'll get my son to read through all of this and see if I can get him to do a dummy run. The potential certainly seems to be there to save some money. I'll get back to you with the outcome but it might take a while. Thanks again.

[XADE]

I'll get my son to read through all of this and see if I can get him to do a dummy run. The potential certainly seems to be there to save some money. I'll get back to you with the outcome but it might take a while. Thanks again.

No problem, there's a lot of info, so apologies for the wall of text

[daibill]

I did the numbers before ordering and the difference in mpg vs the extra cost of the plug in (plus the charger ) and also, the hybrid, didn't stack up for the 3 years I was going to keep the car.

The next one will be an NLine S non hybrid with a manual which will take me to 2028 then re-evaluate then. After seeing the GR Yaris running on Hydrogen at Goodwodd on the weekend, hopefully Hydrogen fuel will be further down the road and will be an option.