E.ON launched a pop-up grocery shop to teach you about EV charging costs
More than half of UK drivers are cutting down on journeys because of the cost of petrol, according to research by energy firm E.ON Next.
52 per cent of drivers say they're driving less than they used to due to fuel prices, while half of those surveyed say they've missed out on a special event or family outing because they couldn't afford to fill up their car.
In one of the stranger publicity stunts we've seen this week, E.ON Next is attempting to address price anxiety relating to electric cars with a pop-up shop stocking items worth exactly £2.70 – the price the energy firm says drivers could be paying to fully charge an EV at home using its E.ON Next Drive tariff.
Shoppers at the London shop could choose from a range of goods, including four fifths of a coffee, one and a half loaves of bread and three quarters of a box of cereal.
Driver concerns about fuel prices, alongside ambitious government sales targets, is helping to drive the transition to electric vehicles in the UK. Trade association SMMT reports the market share of fully electric vehicles rose from 16.5 per cent to 19.6 per cent in 2024, making the UK one of the leaders in EV adoption around the world.
But despite record numbers of EVs on UK roads, two thirds of drivers are in the dark when it comes to EV charging costs, saying they've no idea how much it costs to charge an EV at home. E.ON's £2.70 price stunt was based on the cost of charging a 40kW battery overnight, while larger EVs like the Tesla Model 3 would set you back £4.69 on the firm's tariff – enough for a full coffee at least.
Fuel prices have been slowly falling in the UK as wholesale costs come down, but they remain higher than they were prior to a spike in demand for oil in 2022. A report by RAC Fuel Watch suggests retailers should be doing more to pass price reductions on to customers. The average UK driver spent £48 on petrol last time they were at the pump, while 77 per cent of drivers surveyed said they're worried about rising fuel costs.
Energy providers have started adapting to new charging habits with cheap overnight electricity pricing, with the likes of EDF GoElectric, Ovo Charge Anytime and British Gas Electric Driver all offering special tariffs aimed at electric car owners. Last month, Ford launched its Ford Power Promise alongside the new Ford Puma Gen-E, which offers new customers 10,000 miles of free charging credit with Octopus Energy's Intelligent Octopus Go tariff.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
'Public are sick to death of the migrant free-for-all', says Top Tory as he hails Mail's cash-for-visas investigation
The public are 'sick to death' of the immigration 'free-for-all', Robert Jenrick warned yesterday after the Mail revealed how crooked legal advisers run cash-for-visas scams. The Tory justice spokesman hailed our 'crucial' undercover investigation which exposed how companies are charging up to £22,000 per person to provide 'skilled' jobs in the UK for underqualified foreign workers. The Mail probe discovered a range of brazen tricks being used to dupe the Home Office into providing sponsorship licences which enable convenience stores, barbers, warehouses and bars across the country to bring in overseas labour on false pretences. It is so lucrative that many firms have been started up just to profit from hiring foreign staff and then exploit them for cheap labour. Immigration advisers working as fixers for the firms coach immigrants on how to lie to officials, overstating their levels of education and experience to secure the visa. Mr Jenrick said: 'This crucial Daily Mail investigation shows our immigration system is a free-for-all. 'Scammers are lining their pockets while the public have yet more low-skilled migration forced upon them. 'It's gone on for decades and the public are sick to death of it.' Border security minister Dame Angela Eagle launched an urgent investigation into our probe. She also immediately suspended the sponsorship licence of Leicester-based immigration advice firm Flyover International after the Mail revealed its managing partner tricks the Home Office into believing employers need a certificate of sponsorship to take on overseas workers. Joe Estibeiro told our undercover reporter that he worked with businesses in Bradford, Leicester, Northampton and Peterborough, but takes payment for his services only via third-party bank accounts to avoid a paper trail linking the firm to his scam. He makes it appear that employers can't find any British residents to fill 'skilled' jobs by first advertising the positions in the UK and only recording interviews with the worst candidates to use as evidence if the Home Office investigates. The overseas workers he recruits officially earn around £3,000 a month to meet the Government's minimum salary requirements for skilled worker visas. But Estibeiro described how after the money is paid into their account they have to withdraw all but £900 and secretly hand it back to their boss. More than 131,000 businesses are on the Home Office's list for licensed sponsors for the permits. including market traders, dog groomers – listed as 'canine beauticians' – curtain fitters and even scores of kebab shops. Critics warned the open duplicity could sink Sir Keir Starmer's immigration crackdown which made new restrictions on skilled worker visas a major part of his aim to end the economy's addiction to cheap overseas labour. Flyover International is owned by another man who is understood to be taking the matter seriously and investigating, and says Estibeiro was not officially hired to work for the UK end of the business. Estibeiro denied involvement in any 'illegal or unethical' activity and said he was 'solely involved in student recruitment'. A Home Office source claimed that when Mr Jenrick was immigration minister, he failed to clamp down on the criminal gangs fuelling illegal immigration. The source added: 'If he needs reminding what the Labour Government has done to tackle this, we've introduced a new law to prevent suspected crooks like the one found by the brilliant journalism in the Daily Mail – so the Immigration Advice Authority will get new powers to immediately suspend registered advisers and organisations.'
Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Rachel Reeves to sign off funding for Sizewell C nuclear power plant - 43 years after it was proposed
will tomorrow sign off funding for the Sizewell C nuclear power plant – more than 40 years after it was proposed. The Chancellor will announce £14.2billion to pay for a new reactor at the site in Suffolk, with the plant eventually powering 6million homes. The funding will be included in her comprehensive spending review, which was finalised last night after a bitter row with Yvette Cooper over police funding ended with the Home Secretary having to accept the Treasury's terms. Sizewell C was first proposed in 1982 and, after years of paralysis, was given the green light by the Tories in 2022. Ms Reeves will also confirm a £2.5billion investment in nuclear fusion research, while government sources said ministers would press ahead with proposals for 'mini' nuclear plants around the country. The Treasury said the funding would help create 10,000 new jobs. The last time Britain completed a new nuclear plant was in 1987, which was Sizewell B. Hinkley Point C, in Somerset, is under construction but not expected to open until 2031. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said last night: 'We need new nuclear to deliver a golden age of clean energy.' But Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C group, said the plant was a 'white elephant'. The Prime Minister's spokesman said: 'The review is settled. We will be focused on investing in Britain's renewal so that all working people are better off.'
Sky News
30 minutes ago
- Sky News
The five considerable problems with the chancellor's U-turn on winter fuel payments
There are considerable problems with the winter fuel payment U-turn, but perhaps the political argument in favour outweighs them all? First, Rachel Reeves has executed the plan without working out how to pay for it. This, for an iron chancellor, is a wound that opponents won't let her forget. A summer of speculation about tax rises is not a summer anyone looks forward to. Politics latest: Treasury minister challenged over reason for U-turn Second, the fig leaf that she and Treasury ministers are using is an improvement in economic conditions. If you were being polite, you'd say this is contested. The OBR halved growth this year and the OECD downgraded UK forecasts, albeit only by a little, last week. The claim that interest rates are coming down ignores that their descent is slower because of government decisions of the last six months. Third, the question immediately becomes, what next? Why not personal independent payments (PIP) and the two-child benefit cap? At this stage, it would feel like a climbdown if they did not back down over those. But then, what will the markets - already policing this closely - make of it, and could they punish the government? Fourth, this is aggravating divisions in the Parliamentary Labour Party: the soft left Compass group and ministers like Torsten Bell pushing bigger spending arguments. Those MPs in Tory-facing seats who rely on arguments that Labour can be trusted with the public finances are worried. 👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne's on your podcast app👈 Fifth, this has created a firm division between No 10 (the PM) and No 11 (the Chancellor). No 10 is now conscious that it does not have enough independent advice about the market reaction to economic policies and is seeking to correct. Others, I am told, are just critical of the chancellor's U-turn - for she wobbled first. Read more:UK to become 'AI maker not taker', says PMHow much cash will Reeves give each department? Given the litany of arguments against, why has it happened? Because the hope is this maxi U-turn lances the boil, removes a significant source of pensioners' anger and brings back Labour voters, a price they calculate worth paying, whatever the fiscal cost. We wait to see who is right.
