E.ON Next Drive Smart Tariff Drops to 6.5p per kWh Overnight
E.ON Next has cut the off-peak rate on its Next Drive Smart tariff from 8p to 6.5p per kWh, which the supplier calls the lowest off-peak rate on the British market. The new price has applied between midnight and 6am since 27 October 2026, electrive reported on 2 November.
Key takeaways
- Next Drive Smart: 6.5p per kWh off-peak, down from 8p.
- Next Drive Fixed: 8.5p per kWh off-peak, down from 9p, fixed for 12 months.
- The Drive Smart daytime rate is 34p per kWh.
- Neither tariff has exit fees.
How the tariffs work
The cheap rate covers all electricity the home uses between midnight and 6am, so a dishwasher or washing machine run in that window benefits as well as the car. Outside those hours, or when the driver uses the boost function in the app, power costs 34p per kWh. Auto Express noted that this daytime rate sits about 8p above the Ofgem single-rate price cap.
Drive Smart needs a compatible electric car and charger, a smart meter that sends half-hourly readings and the E.ON Next Home app to schedule charging. Drive Fixed locks its rates for a year instead.
What a full charge costs
Auto Express worked out the cost of a full overnight charge at the new rate in October 2026. A Tesla Model Y RWD with a 60 kWh battery costs £3.90 instead of £4.80, a Nissan Leaf with 75 kWh costs £4.88 instead of £6.00, and a BMW iX3 50 xDrive with 113 kWh costs £7.35 instead of £9.04. For the Model Y and its quoted range of 505 km (314 miles), that is just over 1p per mile.
Public charging is far dearer. Zapmap averages quoted by Auto Express are 54p per kWh for slow chargers and 79p per kWh for rapid ones.
E.ON estimates an average saving of £476 a year on Drive Smart and £428 a year on Drive Fixed, compared with charging at the current price cap. Both figures assume 12,875 km (8,000 miles) a year at an efficiency of 5.4 km (3.33 miles) per kWh. Customers on either tariff also get a free one-year subscription to Zoom EV, which offers discounts on public charging, parking and car hire, plus a donation to the Woodland Trust.
What it means for you
If you can charge at home and have a smart meter, moving all charging into the six-hour window is the cheapest way to run an electric car in Britain right now. Check whether six hours is enough for you: a 7 kW wallbox adds about 42 kWh in that time, so drivers with large batteries and long commutes may still pay the 34p daytime rate for part of their energy. With no exit fees, switching back costs nothing if the sums do not work out.
See also the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla catalogue.
Sources
- electrive: E.ON Next cuts overnight EV charging rate to 6.5p/kWh (2 Nov 2026) (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
- Auto Express: E.ON delivers UK's cheapest EV charging (27 Oct 2026) (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
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