Smart charging FAQs

There are a few simple things you can try, to troubleshoot any charging issues you’re experiencing

1. Make sure your charge target is set in your car manufacturers app. This will be shown in the form of a percentage (%).
2. Check that your charger is connected to Wi-Fi. You can view your charger’s connection status by going to the Home screen of the app. If your charger is disconnected, you will see an error message. Please select “Reconnect” and follow the on-screen instructions.
3. Check that your charger is correctly plugged in to your car.
4. Try a test charge using our Charge Now option. Once your car is plugged in, you will see the Charge Now button highlighted on your Home screen. If your car does not start to charge using this option, please get in touch.

Smart charging is a new scheme that simplifies your charging experience and makes small changes to your charging patterns to help the electricity grid.

As the use of renewable energy in our energy system increases, we can help balance demands on the grid by adjusting our electricity usage to match the peaks and troughs of wind and solar generation.

As this is a new feature to Pod Point, we’re looking to work with our customers to better understand how we can improve smart charging. In return for helping us shape our services, we’ll reward you up to £25*.

For general support with your Pod Point charger, you can use our handy Help Centre or if you would prefer to speak to someone, please email us at beta@pod-point.com.

Simply download our new Pod Point Home app when prompted in our current Driver app. You’ll need to log in using your usual account credentials. Once you’re logged in, you will be asked to enter information about your car, and when you would like it to be charged by each day.

We currently support all single or dual/two rate energy tariffs.

As our new Home app is currently in development, there are some features you will still need your Driver app to manage. We’re developing new features in our Home app all the time, here’s the current list.

If you are on a Smart Tariff such as Intelligent Octopus, Octopus Agile, or Ovo Charge Anytime, then unfortunately you can’t sign up.

If you're on an off-peak tariff, we'll only charge your car at off-peak times when your energy is cheapest.

If you haven’t reached your target battery percentage by the time your cheap rate ends, your car will stop charging so we don’t charge you in your more expensive energy rate period.

When you first plug in, we’ll work out if we will meet your target battery percentage in your cheap rate period. If we can’t meet your target, you will get a notification in our app.

1. Check that the login details used are correct, by signing into your car manufacturers app.
2. Using the same login details, retry connecting your car in the Pod Point app.

We’ve simplified the way you schedule your car charging. Rather than having to manually set a fixed start and finish time, simply set when you’d like your car ready by. Every time you plug in, we'll automatically work-out the cheapest time to charge your car, based on your energy tariff, to make sure it’s ready for when you need it.

We connect to your car automatically and calculate how much energy is needed to ensure you reach the charge target set in your car manufacturers app.

If we can't connect to your car, you can set a fixed amount of charge (a percentage %) to put into your battery.

This provides you with the same "cheaper charging" benefits as the previous scheduled charging but allows us the flexibility to optimise your charging within the off-peak window, maximising the benefit to the grid.

1. Check that your car is connected in your car manufacturers app.
2. Make sure you are using the same login details on the Pod Point App, as you are on your car manufacturers app.
3. Check our list of supported cars here.

1. If we have connected to your car

   You will see in the Pod Point app that this information is greyed out. You will need to update your target battery percentage (%) in your car manufacturers app. Once updated in your car manufacturers app, it will update your Pod Point App too.

2. If we haven’t connected to your car 

   You can update the amount of energy you would like to add to your car each time you plug in (e.g. +20%), directly in the Pod Point App using the Top Up Battery module on the Homescreen.

Yes! Once you have connected your first car, simply click on the + icon at the top of the Homescreen to add another car. There is no limit to the number of cars you can add.

Some car manufacturers, such as Mini and older models of the Nissan Leaf, don’t provide an option to change the target battery percentage (%). In these cases, we will always aim to charge your car to 100%. If you’re on an off-peak tariff, we will charge your car as much as possible during those hours.