How EV tariffs work for electric cars

Thinking about swapping your petrol or diesel car for an electric one? Energy tariffs for electric cars are where you can make most of the running cost savings. 

You can charge using whatever tariff you’re on now, and nothing will go wrong. But you’ll pay the standard rate for something that’s cheapest while you’re asleep. Which can be 3-4 times more expensive than a smart charging tariff like Intelligent Octopus Go.

A dedicated EV charging tariff gives you a cheap smart charging window instead. Here’s how these tariffs work, what home charging costs, and what changes about your week.

• You don’t need a special tariff to run an electric car, but an EV tariff is where the saving is.
• An EV tariff is a home electricity tariff usually with a cheaper rate, built for charging while you sleep.
• Intelligent Octopus Go from Octopus Energy costs 7.6p per kWh for smart charging(the unit you pay for energy in), compared with 26.32p on a price-capped standard tariff from 1st October 2026.
• You’ll need a smart meter, somewhere off-street to park, a home charger, and a compatible car or charger.
• EV Saver, an Octopus Energy tariff open to every Octopus EV driver, takes another 1p off that smart EV charging rate.

No. You can plug an electric car into whatever tariff you’re on and it’ll charge perfectly well. The catch is the price of each unit. On a standard variable tariff you pay the same rate at 2am as at 6pm.

An EV tariff is a home electricity tariff with a cheaper rate, designed for charging an electric car while energy is cheapest, and often greenest.

The difference in price is pretty big. Under the Ofgem price cap from 1st October 2026, a standard variable tariff costs 26.32p per unit for a typical direct debit customer. Intelligent Octopus Go, Octopus Energy’s EV tariff, costs 7.6p per unit for smart charging. That’s less than a third of the price for the same electricity.

So the tariff isn’t really optional if you’re after the maximum savings. It’s what makes cheaper EV running costs a reality.

Every EV tariff does the same job. It gives you a cheap off-peak rate for a few hours, usually at specific times, when national demand is low, and a normal rate the rest of the time. You charge the car in the cheap hours. What separates one tariff from another is the rates and how those hours get decided.

You get a set window every night. You plug in when you get home, then tell the car or the charger to start at the right time. It’s simple and works with almost any car. The trade-off is that you manage the scheduling.

You just tell an app how much charge you want and when you need the car. It works out when to pull the electricity, and you’ll pay less outside the standard window too. You plug in and forget about it. 

With Octopus Energy’s Intelligent Octopus Go tariffs, your car gets up to 6 hours of cheaper charging per day. Octopus Energy might schedule this during your home's off-peak window (11.30pm - 5.30am), or at other times of the day when the grid is greenest.

If Octopus Energy schedules your car to charge outside of the 11:30pm – 5:30am window, your entire home also gets the cheaper rate for that half-hour, when it’s within your car allowance.

• A smart meter, so your supplier can bill you by the half hour
• Somewhere off-street to park, and a home charger fitted
• A compatible car, or a compatible smart charger, for the smart tariffs

Compatibility lists change as manufacturers update their software, so check your car on the tariff page rather than a list in an article. 

No driveway? Public charging is your friend. The Octopus Electroverse app covers the majority of public networks, across the UK and Europe on one bill. 

Far less than filling a tank, and the gap is what pushes most people over the line. A full charge at home costs just £4.07 in a typical EV, compared with £38.79 for the same amount of miles in an equivalent petrol car. 

Here it is per charge, per mile and across a year.

You can see the maths behind all of these calculations here. 

One more thing if you’re doing your sums this autumn. VAT on domestic electricity will drop from 5% to 0% in Great Britain on 1st October 2026, funded by the government for this financial year. 

Northern Ireland isn’t covered by the cut and gets comparable funding instead. Public charging is taxed at 20% either way, which is part of why home charging costs so much less.

The running costs come into their own. The change in routine is the bit nobody tells you about before you switch to electric, and it’s mostly good news.

• Charging stops being an errand. No detour on the way home, no forecourt, no queue behind someone buying a meal deal. You plug in the way you plug in a phone, and the car sorts itself out.
• You top up, you don’t fill up. Most drivers plug in most nights and rarely see the battery get low. Charging to around 80% is the everyday habit, and a full charge becomes a long-trip thing. It takes a few weeks to stop thinking in tanks.
• Your fuel bill moves onto your electricity bill. Worth saying plainly, because it surprises people. Your petrol spend disappears and your electricity spend goes up, almost always by a smaller amount. On Intelligent Octopus Go the cheap window covers the whole house, so the dishwasher and washing machine can move into it too.
• The routine is one decision, made once. You set the schedule or tell the app what you need, and it repeats every night. There’s no daily admin.
• Public charging becomes the exception. For most drivers doing local and medium-length trips, it’s a handful of times a year. Worth learning how it works before you need it, rather than in a service station car park.

One practical note. If you share the car, share the routine. Whoever gets home last is usually the one plugging in.

Intelligent Octopus Go, is the UK’s most popular EV tariff. And it’s the one to go for if your car or charger works with it. 

You get six hours of cheap electricity every night, between 11.30pm and 5.30am, at 7.6p per unit. That rate covers everything in the house during those hours, not just the car. The smart charging can also pull cheap units outside the window. You’ll need a smart meter and a compatible car or smart charger. Check both and sign up on the Intelligent Octopus Go page.

Switching usually means three (or more) decisions at once: which car, how you’re charging it, and which tariff you’re on. Leasing with us puts them in the same place.

Our personal leases cover road tax, MOT, servicing, and maintenance and repairs for fair wear and tear, in one monthly payment. Tyre cover is an optional extra, and you get an EV expert (a real life human!) to talk to while you’re shortlisting cars if you need a hand.

Charging offers vary by car, and some come with a home charger included or discounted, so check the one you’re looking at. See our latest EV leasing deals, and more on EV charger installation in our guide to home charging.

Get your electric car through us, either through salary sacrifice or a personal lease, and you can get access to an exclusively discounted home charging tariff from Octopus Energy. Enter, EV Saver. 

It’s a version of Intelligent Octopus Go with an extra 1p off the smart EV charging rate, taking it from 7.6p to 6.6p per unit. 

How the discount works. Nothing about the tariff itself changes. Same six-hour window between 11.30pm and 5.30am, same smart charging, same app. You just pay a penny less for every unit you use in that window, for as long as you’re an Octopus EV driver. A penny doesn’t sound massive, but it does its job every time you charge at home, for the length of your lease.

Who can get it. Any Octopus EV driver, whether you lease personally, take a car through your employer’s salary sacrifice scheme, or lease through a business. You’ll need a smart meter, a compatible car and home charger, and an Octopus Energy account on Intelligent Octopus Go.

How you set it up. Join Octopus Energy if you’re not already a customer, switch to the tariff and then link your Octopus EV and Octopus Energy accounts online. Simple. 

No. Any home electricity tariff will charge an electric car. But a dedicated EV tariff gives you a cheaper rate, and that’s where the saving is. Under the Ofgem price cap from 1st October 2026, a standard rate is 26.32p per unit, compared with 7.6p per unit on Intelligent Octopus Go.

A full charge at home costs just £4.07 in a typical EV, compared with £38.79 for the same amount of miles in an equivalent petrol car.

Overnight, on almost every tariff. Intelligent Octopus Go gives you six hours between 11.30pm and 5.30am, and its smart charging can find cheap units outside that window too. Charging in the early evening, when demand peaks, is the most expensive way to do it.

Not usually. Smart EV tariffs need half-hourly meter readings to bill you the cheaper rate, so a smart meter is a condition of joining. If you don’t have one, your supplier can fit one, normally at no extra cost. Ask how long the wait is where you live.

EV Saver is a version of Octopus Energy’s Intelligent Octopus Go tariff with an extra 1p off the EV charging rate, taking it to 6.6p per unit. It’s open to every Octopus EV driver, whether you lease personally, or through salary sacrifice.