Go and Intelligent Go | Switch to Octopus

If you own an electric vehicle, Go and Intelligent Go are the two Octopus tariffs designed specifically for you. Both offer a dramatically cheap overnight electricity rate, making home charging a fraction of the cost of a standard tariff. The differences between them matter, though, and which one suits you depends on your charger and how hands-on you want to be.

How Go works

Go is the simpler of the two. You get two electricity rates: a cheap overnight rate of 8.5p/kWh and a standard day rate. The overnight window is 00:30 to 05:30. During those hours, everything in your house runs at the cheap rate. It’s not limited to your car charger.

The day rate on Go is higher than the standard Flexible tariff. This is the trade-off. You get much cheaper overnight electricity in exchange for paying a premium during the day. The maths works heavily in your favour if you can shift a significant chunk of your usage to overnight, which is straightforward if your main overnight load is EV charging.

You need a smart meter for Go. You don’t need any specific charger. Any charger (or even a granny cable) works, as long as you schedule charging for the overnight window.

How Intelligent Go differs

Intelligent Go is the smarter version. The base overnight window is longer: 23:30 to 05:30, giving you six hours of cheap electricity at 7p/kWh rather than five hours. Your whole home benefits from the cheap rate during this window, not just the car charger. That alone makes a meaningful difference if you need to add a lot of range overnight.

The real feature is smart scheduling. When you connect a compatible charger or EV to Octopus’s system, you tell it what time you need the car ready and how much charge you want. The system then allocates up to six hours of cheap-rate charging per 24-hour period. These cheap slots can fall inside the overnight window, outside it or a mix of both. Whenever charging is scheduled outside your home’s off-peak hours, the whole home also gets the discounted rate for those half-hour slots.

Since early 2026, Octopus enforces a six-hour limit on smart charging at the cheap rate within any 24-hour period. If the system needs to schedule more than six hours to reach your target charge level, only the first six hours are billed at the discounted rate. Any additional half-hours are charged at your standard day rate. A Charge Cap feature lets you toggle between capping charging to the six cheapest hours or pursuing your full charge target regardless of cost.

This smart scheduling only works with compatible hardware. You need either a compatible charger (Ohme, Hypervolt Home 3 Pro, Indra, Wallbox Pulsar Max, myenergi zappi, Andersen, VCHRGD and some others) or a compatible EV with built-in smart charging (Tesla models, various Volkswagen Group vehicles including Audi and Porsche). The Octopus website maintains the full compatibility list and it does change as new integrations get added.

The off-peak windows in detail

Go: 00:30 to 05:30 at 8.5p/kWh. Five hours. Enough to add roughly 100-150 miles of range on a 7kW charger.

Intelligent Go: 23:30 to 05:30 at 7p/kWh. Six hours. Enough for about 150-180 miles on a 7kW charger. Smart scheduling can allocate up to six hours of cheap charging per day, which may include slots outside this core window.

Both tariffs are electricity-only. Your gas stays on whatever tariff it was already on (usually Flexible).

What about the day rate?

This is the important number that people sometimes overlook. The Go and Intelligent Go day rates are typically 2-4p/kWh higher than the Flexible rate. That premium applies to all daytime electricity, not just car charging.

For a household using, say, 8 kWh of electricity during the day, the extra cost is roughly 16-32p per day. Against that, charging an EV at 7-8.5p/kWh instead of 24p/kWh saves roughly £1.50-2.00 per charging session. As long as you’re regularly charging an EV, the savings from cheap overnight electricity far outweigh the higher day rate.

The break-even point depends on your household’s daytime usage and how much you charge your car. For most EV owners doing a typical daily commute, Go and Intelligent Go save between £300 and £600 per year compared to charging on a standard tariff.

Who qualifies

Go is available to anyone with a smart meter. You don’t need to prove you own an EV, although it’s designed for EV owners. Some people without EVs use Go if they have a battery storage system or other large overnight loads. Octopus doesn’t police this.

Intelligent Go requires either a compatible EV or a compatible smart charger connected to Octopus’s system. If you have a basic “dumb” charger and a non-compatible EV, you won’t be able to access Intelligent Go. Standard Go would be your option instead.

Do you need a smart meter?

Yes, for both tariffs. The smart meter is how Octopus measures your usage during the cheap and expensive periods. Without one, they can’t apply the different rates.

If you don’t have a smart meter, Octopus will install one for free. The installation takes about an hour and you can book it through the app. Once it’s fitted and communicating, you can switch to Go or Intelligent Go straight away.

Compatible chargers for Intelligent Go

The most commonly used chargers with Intelligent Go are:

Ohme Home Pro / Ohme ePod - popular, well-integrated, competitively priced
Hypervolt Home 3 Pro - strong Octopus integration via OCPP
Indra Smart Pro / Smart Lux - supports vehicle-to-grid if your car is compatible
Wallbox Pulsar Max - widely available, good build quality
myenergi zappi - works well alongside solar setups
Andersen A3 / Quartz - premium build, full Intelligent Go support
VCHRGD Seven / Seven Pro - newer entrant with solid integration

If your EV has built-in smart charging capability (Tesla, various Volkswagen Group models including Audi and Porsche), you may not need a compatible charger. The car itself communicates with Octopus’s systems.

The compatibility list evolves regularly. Before buying a charger, check the current list on the Octopus website to make sure your chosen model qualifies.

Real-world savings

Here are some rough numbers for a typical EV owner driving 8,000 miles per year:

On Flexible (about 24.5p/kWh): roughly £590 per year for home charging On Go overnight rate (8.5p/kWh): roughly £205 per year for home charging On Intelligent Go overnight rate (7p/kWh): roughly £170 per year, with the added convenience of smart scheduling

The annual saving is around £400. Factor in the slightly higher day rate for household usage and the net saving is typically £300-400 per year. That’s real money, and it makes the wallbox installation pay for itself within a couple of years.

Use the tariff comparison tool to see exact rates for your area, or check out the home charging basics guide if you’re still choosing a charger.