Octopus Energy Germany announced FreeRide in August 2026, a nationwide bundle for EV drivers built around a go-e PRO Charger. For a starting price of EUR 2,599 on a 24-month term, the package covers delivery and installation of the 11 kW wallbox, grid operator registration, an electricity tariff and Octopus's own smart charging control. On top of that, Octopus refunds up to 90 kWh of electricity a month, the equivalent of roughly 500 kilometres of driving at 18 kWh per 100 km, for sessions its system charges automatically within the driver's own settings. A manual boost from the app or the wallbox itself does not count toward the free allowance. Octopus also guarantees that if a driver's annual charging cost still comes out higher than an equivalent petrol car's fuel cost, it refunds the difference.
The shape of the deal is the interesting part. An energy retailer is not just selling electricity anymore, it is selling the hardware and the control logic that decides when that electricity gets used, in one subscription. The wallbox itself is a commodity in that bundle: the go-e PRO Charger speaks OCPP, the same protocol Plugchoice manages chargers over, so nothing about the hardware ties it to Octopus's own backend specifically. What actually differentiates FreeRide is the scheduling and the tariff logic sitting in the cloud above the charger, which is exactly the layer a CSMS operates in.
Sources: Octopus Energy: 500 Kilometer pro Monat inklusive, pv magazine Deutschland, August 19, 2026, electrive.net, August 19, 2026.