The astonishing FREE electricity deal offered to Tesla car owners that was pulled DOWN by energy giant from their website just hours after details leaked online
- Origin Energy offers EV owners five hours of free charging
- The offer is quickly withdrawn as it was triggered too early
- A spokesperson says the plan will be ready in a ‘few weeks’
Origin Energy has made an embarrassing backtrack after offering Tesla and other EV owners five hours of free electricity a day to recharge their vehicles – only to quickly withdraw the plan when they realised it had been put online too early.
Origin Energy provided details on its website of the Origin 360 EV Energy Plan plan on Saturday night but the pages were pulled down sometime before Sunday afternoon.
However, a link for people to register their interest to sign up for the plan was still active.
Origin Energy has revealed their plan to give EV owners five hours of free charging by mistake
A spokesperson of Origin Energy confirmed the plan’s operational pages had been activated early by mistake.
The spokesperson said the plan’s details, which were also reported by the techAU website, have not been fully finalised.
‘The plan is not live yet, so it is not available for customers,’ the spokesperson said.
‘We will be announcing more details soon and can comment at that time.’
Under the proposed plan EV owners would be able to get free electricity every day between the hours of 10am and 3pm
Asked when the plan would be ready the spokesperson indicated it would be ‘a few weeks’.
Under the Origin 360 EV Energy Plan, as it was advertised, people who own electric vehicles are offered free power to recharge their cars between the hours of 9am and 3pm every day.
For those who drive their EV to work and won’t be able to charge during those times the free electricity is also available on the weekend.
The Origin Energy plan also detailed the other rates that apply during peak and off-peak periods
In theory the 10 free hours of charging might make it possible to power an entire week’s driving, or around 200km.
Although not stated by Origin, it would seem that during the five-hour periods free power would also be generally available for the household.
The plan aims to encourage electricity use at the times when most renewable power is being generated.
An Origin spokesperson stressed that the plan has not been finalised yet but they expect to launch it in ‘a few weeks’
For charging at other times the Origin plan’s advertised rates were 28 cents/kWh during peak times (6am-10am, 3pm-1am) and 18 cents during off-peak periods (1am-6am).
The plan also offered a solar feed-in tariff of 6 cents/kWh.
Only those who could supply the registration number of their electric vehicle were able to apply to join the power plan.
