Joining Intelligent Octopus Go with a Tesla
Here’s what you need to do if you have a Tesla and want to join Intelligent Octopus Go.
First, you need to be an Octopus Energy customer. If you’re not one yet, you can sign up here.
Before starting, make sure that:
- you have a smart meter that is sending us half hourly readings
- you’re at home, with your car plugged into your charger
- your car isn’t fully charged (so that we can do a test charge and make sure we can connect to your car)
- you don’t have any other kind of charging schedule set up - whether that’s on the car, the charger, or a third-party app. Otherwise, you need to disable them first.
If you have multiple Teslas, you won’t be able to join Intelligent Octopus Go at the moment, unless you have a compatible charger. If so, please follow the relevant charger onboarding steps instead.
Step 1: Open the Octopus Energy app.
Go to the Home tab, scroll down to the ‘Explore our Lab’ section and tap the ‘Get started’ button on ‘the Intelligent Octopus Go’ card.
If you don’t see the ‘Explore our Lab’ section and you do have a smart meter that sends us half-hourly reads, this means we might not be able to connect to your smart meter at the moment. Try again later. If the problem persists, get in touch with us.
Step 2: Select the device you’d like to integrate with.
For a Tesla, select ‘Electric Vehicles’ > ‘Tesla
Step 3: Add your car
Click on ‘Add my car’ and choose your car model from the list provided (if it’s not there, you can ‘request an integration’ at the bottom of the page)
Step 4: Add your charger
Next, click on ‘Set up charger’. We need to know what type of home charger you have to accurately plan your charging. Select your home charger from our long list of chargers. If you don’t have a home charger, select the ‘No charger’ option. If you don’t find your charger on the list, you can also ‘request an integration’ at the bottom of the page.
Step 5: Accept T&Cs
Next, click on ‘Start tariff switch’. Read the tariff’s T&Cs, then tick the box to agree to the T&Cs at the bottom of the page and click ‘Start my switch’.
Important: your tariff switch has started but isn’t completed yet. It will only be effective once you’ve completed all the following steps.
Step 6: Connect your Tesla
We now need to connect to your car to make sure we can control it and schedule your charging. Click on ‘Connect Device’. You’ll be prompted to connect to your Tesla. After you click on ‘Go to device login’, we’ll redirect you to the Tesla website for you to login.
Step 7: Login to your Tesla account
Log in using your Tesla login details. Select ‘Vehicle Information’ and ‘Vehicle Charging Management’, and click on ‘Allow’. Important: if you don’t select both options, we won’t be able to charge your car.
If you’re curious about why we need this information, you can read more about it in the FAQ below.
Step 8: Add a Virtual Key
Once you see ‘Device connected’, click on ‘Add Virtual Key’.
If your Tesla is a Model X or Model S from before 2021, you can ignore this step, and click on ‘Virtual key added or not required’.
In all other cases, click on ‘Add virtual key’. You’ll be taken to a Tesla screen.
Open your Tesla app, click on allow third parties to access your vehicles, then return to the previous Tesla screen and click on ‘Finish setup’.
Return to the Octopus app, and click on ‘Virtual key added or not required’
Check our FAQ if you have any issues at this stage.
Step 9: Test charge
We now need to perform a test charge to test whether we can connect to your car. Click on ‘Test connection’ and follow the instructions in the app.
Step 10 - You're on Intelligent Octopus Go!
If the test charge is successful, you should move onto a completion screen in the app and then see your car in the Devices tab. This means you’re now successfully on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff!
If you do have any issues during the test charge, check our FAQ.
FAQ
I have multiple Teslas - how do I sign up to Intelligent Octopus Go?
Unfortunately, we’re not able to support multiple Teslas at the moment. Register your interest here to be the first to know when it’ll be available. Otherwise, if you have a compatible charger, you can connect to Intelligent Octopus Go using your charger instead. Select ‘Chargers’ instead of ‘Electric Vehicles’ after you clicked on ‘Get started’ on Intelligent Octopus Go.
I am having issues with connecting my Tesla (step 7)
If you have any issues here, we will need you to check a few things. In order for us to communicate with your car, the vehicle must have mobile app access enabled. You can allow Mobile Access from Controls > Safety > Allow Mobile Access while seated in the vehicle.
You’ll also need to make sure that you only currently have one Tesla connected in your app. If you have more than one, your device will fail to authenticate.
Why do you need access to all this information to connect to my Tesla?
To be able to charge your Tesla, we need access to the following data: vehicle location, charging commands to schedule, and start/stop charging. Tesla packages this information with a bunch of other data, which we don’t use. The only way for us to have access to the data we need is for you to tick the boxes for ‘Vehicle Information’ and ‘Vehicle Charging Management’ when connecting your device.
I didn’t tick the right boxes when giving you access (step 7). What happens next?
If you don’t tick the ‘Vehicle Information’ and ‘Vehicle Charging Management’ boxes, the device connection will fail. If this happens, you need to go to Tesla.com, log in to your account, go to the Security tab and to Manage Third Parties, and remove Octopus from your allowed third parties. You’ll need to then go through the onboarding again.
I’m having an issue adding a Virtual Key
If your Tesla is a pre-2021 Model S or X, you don’t need to do this and can click on ‘Virtual key added or not required’ instead.
If you are having issues, it could be that you don’t have an associated car in your Tesla app - you’ll need to make sure that you are using the same login details in the Tesla app.
I’m having issues with the test charge
If you do have any issues during the test charge, there are a few things which you can check:
- The vehicle is fully plugged in
- There’s not already a charge in progress
- Your vehicle is at home. It’s sometimes helpful to wait 20 minutes after arriving home and plugging in to start the test charge. This is because it sometimes takes time for the location data to be updated and for us to receive it
- There are no existing charging schedules in the Tesla App as these can interrupt a test charge
- You can try disconnecting and reconnecting the vehicle
Hey I'm Constantine, welcome to Octopus Energy!
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