In February 2026 started using the Next Smart Drive tariff, and experienced one or two problems. @DebF_EONNext has asked me to record my experiences. I hope this will provide a few answers to questions those of you just starting or thinking of trying the Smart EV tariff might have. I make no claim to be an expert. @geoffers @rwh202 @DebF_EONNext and others have been most helpful. Please feel free to point out any errors.
Since this post ended up like a rather lengthy report I've prefaced it with an executive summary for the short of time.
This post is summarised as follows:
1. Executive Summary
Next Drive Smart works fairly well once set up. Contact the E.On EV team or post on the forum if you have problems. The phone help line isn’t the best place for technical help. The mobile signal connection to the car can be rather flaky, changes sometimes don’t get implemented for some time.
Check your EV immediately after plugging in to make sure it hasn’t started an unexpected on-peak charge due to poor mobile connection.
Charges will only be scheduled if the EV is plugged in and the battery % is below the set charge %. Scheduled charges outside the fixed off-peak period occur quite often and are charged at the off-peak rate.
2. My Setup
I am probably in a minority group, having a home battery (Tesla Powerwall 2) as well as solar panels and EV (2015 Tesla Model S). We typically use 10-12kWh per day on-peak period electricity and the Powerwall can just about supply this without significant solar input (winter). So we actually use virtually no on-peak; 27kWh last year with the former 7 hours off-peak Next Drive V7 tariff, but about 9000kWh/year off-peak, including charging the car, so getting the lowest off-peak tariff is advantageous, regardless of the on-peak rate. I have been on an E.On Next Drive Fixed tariff for two years.
My experience is specific the Tesla EV. Other EV makes may be different.
There is an issue for Smart charging users with home batteries. E.On can activate a charge during the daytime on-peak period, at off-peak rates and this can supply the house as well as the car – unless you have a home battery. At these times the home battery will be supplying the house, so the EV will drain the home battery first. There are a couple of software solutions and a hardware solution. I have the hardware solution, the EV connector is wired in with Henley blocks between the meter and the home battery controller, which therefore knows nothing about the EV connector.
3. First attempt to connect - Unsuccessful
Initiating the Next Drive Smart V5.5 tariff was very easy on the Next Home app. However, connecting the Tesla EV was not so straightforward. I entered the Tesla car and Tesla wall connector types, which were accepted by the app. Nearly everyone seems to call the wall connector a ‘charger’. To be pedantic, the charger is in the car. My Tesla Gen 2 wall connector is a ‘dumb’ connector with no internet connection and it turns out that this is not necessary.
The app then directed me to the Tesla authorisation site where I logged in with my Telsa details and selected the three ‘permission’ options allowing E.On to access the car and my location – I was wondering how one did that but it was easy. The problem occurred at the next stage. It failed to connect to the car and threw up an error window – “Network Error - There seems to have been a connection problem”. I tried several times without success. Oh dear, what now?
I rang the E.On help line. The very helpful lady told me that I definitely had to have an intelligent charger (wall connector) for it to work. WRONG – as it turns out. The app controls the car, NOT the connector, as @geoffers has pointed out multiple times. and the helpful people on the help line don’t really know much about the technical details of the Smart EV tariff. It now works fine using my 13 amp mobile connector plugged into a house power socket as well as the 7kW wall connector.
4. Second attempt – successful!
Having raised my sorrows with the Community, a poor mobile signal was suggested, but this turned out not to be the case. @DebF looked into it and an email headed “Great news Mike, your car and charger are connected to our app!” Many thanks @DebF. This time, now having switched to Next Drive Smart V5.9, I went through the Add EV process on the Home app again and it connected immediately. I didn’t change the in car setting to “charge by departure time” but it seemed to change as required anyway. So if you have problems setting up the car, it’s best to talk to the E.On EV team and post on this forum.
5. Initial experience, problems and solutions
Basically, everything seems to work as advertised – eventually. The problems seem to boil down to delays due to flaky mobile connections. My mobile signal is rather poor, the car prioritises the strongest of mobile and wifi signals and usually connects to my wifi when in the garage by the connector. I believe that the app connects to the car via the mobile signal rather than the wifi, but I may be wrong there. The app does say that it may take 10 or 15 minutes to activate a command. The app controls when to charge and the % charge. But the % charge can also be set in the car, which then reflects in the app.
I tested Boost, which started charging at on-peak rate after some delay, but stopped as soon as deselected. It may take longer sometimes.
Changing the ‘charge my battery to’ slider in the Next Home Smart Schedule ‘Manage’ window. and pressing ‘Save’ sometimes throws up a ‘failure to set’ warning. It usually works if left for a few minutes and tried again. The car sometimes seems to start charging briefly when changing a setting – at the on-peak rate presumably.
6. Normal charging behaviour
I didn’t need to use the car for several days so I was able to play with the settings and follow the normal charging process. The Home app has two main screens – Overview, and EV. The other option for solar, battery etc are not active in my case. The EV screen shows scheduled charge times for the next 24 hours or so. These periods vary in length and often change during the day. If the battery is up to the set % level no scheduled charges will show, I think. Neither will one get the off-peak rate for the house if the car is not plugged, below the set % and ready to charge, as far as I can see.
One initial surprise was charge periods at 11:30 pm, outside the off-peak period, on the first two days. It turns out that scheduled charges during the on-peak period are very common, often occurring early afternoon as well. The wholesale price that our suppliers pay seems to peak around breakfast time and early evening and go low around midday and the early morning hours, so don’t be surprised to see charges during the on-peak period. My E.On Next app eventually showed these charges being at the off-peak rate, as advertised, I’m waiting for the first 34 page bill to confirm it!
7. Plugging in comms problem
The first time I used the car, I plugged back in and, being a bit busy, didn’t check what was happening for an hour. Then I discovered that it had started charging at 32amps on-peak and used 5kWh! I stopped the charge using the car screen and then noticed that the mobile signal strength display had a line through it. The Home app showed Unplugged. Clearly the app couldn’t communicate with the car, which, being set to “charge by” decided to start immediately.
I rebooted the car connection, which then connected to my wifi. The Home app then showed connected at idle shortly after. The next day I used the car it worked fine after plugging back in and didn’t start charging at all.
So it’s not clear to me what service the app actually connects to the car through. The moral is to check the car charging status when plugging in – every time.
Since this post ended up like a rather lengthy report I've prefaced it with an executive summary for the short of time.
This post is summarised as follows:
- Executive Summary
- My setup
- First attempt to connect – unsuccessful
- Second attempt – successful
- Initial experience, problems and solutions
- Normal charging behaviour
- Plugging in comms problem
1. Executive Summary
Next Drive Smart works fairly well once set up. Contact the E.On EV team or post on the forum if you have problems. The phone help line isn’t the best place for technical help. The mobile signal connection to the car can be rather flaky, changes sometimes don’t get implemented for some time.
Check your EV immediately after plugging in to make sure it hasn’t started an unexpected on-peak charge due to poor mobile connection.
Charges will only be scheduled if the EV is plugged in and the battery % is below the set charge %. Scheduled charges outside the fixed off-peak period occur quite often and are charged at the off-peak rate.
2. My Setup
I am probably in a minority group, having a home battery (Tesla Powerwall 2) as well as solar panels and EV (2015 Tesla Model S). We typically use 10-12kWh per day on-peak period electricity and the Powerwall can just about supply this without significant solar input (winter). So we actually use virtually no on-peak; 27kWh last year with the former 7 hours off-peak Next Drive V7 tariff, but about 9000kWh/year off-peak, including charging the car, so getting the lowest off-peak tariff is advantageous, regardless of the on-peak rate. I have been on an E.On Next Drive Fixed tariff for two years.
My experience is specific the Tesla EV. Other EV makes may be different.
There is an issue for Smart charging users with home batteries. E.On can activate a charge during the daytime on-peak period, at off-peak rates and this can supply the house as well as the car – unless you have a home battery. At these times the home battery will be supplying the house, so the EV will drain the home battery first. There are a couple of software solutions and a hardware solution. I have the hardware solution, the EV connector is wired in with Henley blocks between the meter and the home battery controller, which therefore knows nothing about the EV connector.
3. First attempt to connect - Unsuccessful
Initiating the Next Drive Smart V5.5 tariff was very easy on the Next Home app. However, connecting the Tesla EV was not so straightforward. I entered the Tesla car and Tesla wall connector types, which were accepted by the app. Nearly everyone seems to call the wall connector a ‘charger’. To be pedantic, the charger is in the car. My Tesla Gen 2 wall connector is a ‘dumb’ connector with no internet connection and it turns out that this is not necessary.
The app then directed me to the Tesla authorisation site where I logged in with my Telsa details and selected the three ‘permission’ options allowing E.On to access the car and my location – I was wondering how one did that but it was easy. The problem occurred at the next stage. It failed to connect to the car and threw up an error window – “Network Error - There seems to have been a connection problem”. I tried several times without success. Oh dear, what now?
I rang the E.On help line. The very helpful lady told me that I definitely had to have an intelligent charger (wall connector) for it to work. WRONG – as it turns out. The app controls the car, NOT the connector, as @geoffers has pointed out multiple times. and the helpful people on the help line don’t really know much about the technical details of the Smart EV tariff. It now works fine using my 13 amp mobile connector plugged into a house power socket as well as the 7kW wall connector.
4. Second attempt – successful!
Having raised my sorrows with the Community, a poor mobile signal was suggested, but this turned out not to be the case. @DebF looked into it and an email headed “Great news Mike, your car and charger are connected to our app!” Many thanks @DebF. This time, now having switched to Next Drive Smart V5.9, I went through the Add EV process on the Home app again and it connected immediately. I didn’t change the in car setting to “charge by departure time” but it seemed to change as required anyway. So if you have problems setting up the car, it’s best to talk to the E.On EV team and post on this forum.
5. Initial experience, problems and solutions
Basically, everything seems to work as advertised – eventually. The problems seem to boil down to delays due to flaky mobile connections. My mobile signal is rather poor, the car prioritises the strongest of mobile and wifi signals and usually connects to my wifi when in the garage by the connector. I believe that the app connects to the car via the mobile signal rather than the wifi, but I may be wrong there. The app does say that it may take 10 or 15 minutes to activate a command. The app controls when to charge and the % charge. But the % charge can also be set in the car, which then reflects in the app.
I tested Boost, which started charging at on-peak rate after some delay, but stopped as soon as deselected. It may take longer sometimes.
Changing the ‘charge my battery to’ slider in the Next Home Smart Schedule ‘Manage’ window. and pressing ‘Save’ sometimes throws up a ‘failure to set’ warning. It usually works if left for a few minutes and tried again. The car sometimes seems to start charging briefly when changing a setting – at the on-peak rate presumably.
6. Normal charging behaviour
I didn’t need to use the car for several days so I was able to play with the settings and follow the normal charging process. The Home app has two main screens – Overview, and EV. The other option for solar, battery etc are not active in my case. The EV screen shows scheduled charge times for the next 24 hours or so. These periods vary in length and often change during the day. If the battery is up to the set % level no scheduled charges will show, I think. Neither will one get the off-peak rate for the house if the car is not plugged, below the set % and ready to charge, as far as I can see.
One initial surprise was charge periods at 11:30 pm, outside the off-peak period, on the first two days. It turns out that scheduled charges during the on-peak period are very common, often occurring early afternoon as well. The wholesale price that our suppliers pay seems to peak around breakfast time and early evening and go low around midday and the early morning hours, so don’t be surprised to see charges during the on-peak period. My E.On Next app eventually showed these charges being at the off-peak rate, as advertised, I’m waiting for the first 34 page bill to confirm it!
7. Plugging in comms problem
The first time I used the car, I plugged back in and, being a bit busy, didn’t check what was happening for an hour. Then I discovered that it had started charging at 32amps on-peak and used 5kWh! I stopped the charge using the car screen and then noticed that the mobile signal strength display had a line through it. The Home app showed Unplugged. Clearly the app couldn’t communicate with the car, which, being set to “charge by” decided to start immediately.
I rebooted the car connection, which then connected to my wifi. The Home app then showed connected at idle shortly after. The next day I used the car it worked fine after plugging back in and didn’t start charging at all.
So it’s not clear to me what service the app actually connects to the car through. The moral is to check the car charging status when plugging in – every time.
Last edited by DebF_EONNext; 02-04-26 at 11:49. Reason: Featured thread
