[UK] Octopus: Electric Juice Network

[Spikey.B]

Ha anybody signed up for the Octopus Electric Juice Network?
You receive a card which can be used by many electric car charging points in the UK and Europe.
The bill is added to your Octopus electric bill. Price per kWh varies ones I looked at were 30p/40P.
Thought might be useful backup if Tesla SC not available.
I normally charge at home but am. planning a holiday in the UK and want to cover all bases.

 

[Mrklaw]

Ha anybody signed up for the Octopus Electric Juice Network?
You receive a card which can be used by many electric car charging points in the UK and Europe.
The bill is added to your Octopus electric bill. Price per kWh varies ones I looked at were 30p/40P.
Thought might be useful backup if Tesla SC not available.
I normally charge at home but am. planning a holiday in the UK and want to cover all bases.

key question for me would be - how many networks does it support and do you get a discount? My preference would be to try and avoid any rfID cards, any special apps and mainly favour contactless debit card enabled chargers only. Feels doable to fill the gaps between superchargers

 

[Rirawin]

Thanks for the tip! Just registered. What's also interesting is that their map is showing nearby chargers that weren't displayed on Zap-map. Looks like a lot of these chargers are 13kWh and Zap-map doesn't have a filter for that.

 

[PITA]

Hmmm... 20% Tax at Public Chargers

but only 5% Tax on Domestic Electric Bill

So presumably they'll bill it at 20%... or is it a Tax Dodge?

 

[fsman]

How does Octopus Electric Juice compare to Shell Recharge Card/App?

It looks to me that Shell is
1) cheaper price per KW/H at many chargers but has a 35p transaction fee per charge
2) you can start and stop charging directly from your App - no need for an RFID card.
3) has lots more chargers in Europe - so no need for another card like "ChargeMap Pass".

Has anyone had experience of both?

 

[browellm]

I registered for a card a while back as I like the aggregation it provides from quite a few networks including Shell and Ionity.

I often have a surplus on my Octopus account so it could come in handy in the future if I need to charge off SuC. There's no discount, but it costs nothing to register so it's purely a convenience thing for me.

 

[andyf1140]

Looks great, I signed up but then when I started exploring the map I could only find locations that didn't accept juice cards! Does that mean that you have to use the app??

What I found was that there is a filter on the top right that's not included under filters. It is labeled All by default if you press it it changes to EJN and only shows the chargers that accept the Juice card which is not many...

 

[Plagued]

key question for me would be - how many networks does it support and do you get a discount? My preference would be to try and avoid any rfID cards, any special apps and mainly favour contactless debit card enabled chargers only. Feels doable to fill the gaps between superchargers

I thought that too until I realised that a lot of the providers like Polar charge you more to use your card, there's two rates. It's illegal to charge someone in a shop more for different payment options so you can't legally do a discount if someone pays cash and you don't get a 2% credit card charge, so it's maddening that they can get away with charging you more if you pay by card. Even worse when the last two polar chargers I've tried both crashed when starting to charge and my account was then locked showing I'd already got a session in progress and I had to pay 20% odd more by using my visa card as the app was screwed.

Hmmm... 20% Tax at Public Chargers

but only 5% Tax on Domestic Electric Bill

So presumably they'll bill it at 20%... or is it a Tax Dodge?

This was a move by the government last year, they found out companies were charging a reduced tax rate and classing it as providing electricity, but they were told they were providing a service and therefor they had to charge 20% tax. There's been an ongoing argument that the lower your income the lower the chance you have a driveway and can charge at home, so it's like another case of lower taxes for the wealthy.

 

[prabhu]

I use electric juice with my leaf. In addition, I would also recommend bonnet app. They regularly have promotions to give 1 month free charging, the latest code being "FULLYCHARGED". Sometimes, osprey or shell via bonnet is cheaper than Tesla superchargers but slower. Useful if you want to eat and do not want the hassle of idle fees.

 

[Gatsojon]

I signed up as I’m with Octopus already (like many/most) and I like the idea of a single card for all chargers. Well, that ideal is a good way off (I currently have 6 cards in the car) but I guess the more customers they have, the better position for achieving that they have.

 

[page3]

I’m with Octopus and have two EVs but have never heard of this. Do they actually tell anyone about it?!

Anyway, doesn’t seem a good idea-

If you are on supply with us at home, any charges on Electric Juice partner networks will be added to your Octopus home energy bill.

So that’ll mess up our monthly direct debit amount. I’ll have to go in to the octopus app and transfer the billed amount each time. Seems like a pain.

 

[Rirawin]

You can add a payment card to your account so it doesn’t touch your Direct Debit at all.

 

[page3]

You can add a payment card to your account so it doesn’t touch your Direct Debit at all.

That’s useful to know, thanks.