There are savings to be made, but I feel that the above report exaggerates the scale of these savings. And the "hard of thinking" cant understand timeswitches, either stand alone or built into appliances.

I've no idea how accurate the info in the following link is, but it's making an interesting point, a very sensible way to use off-peak:

I'm not surprised that a lot of cars aren't being charged on cheap rate electricity.  That would require signing up for something like E7, which makes on-peak electricity more expensive.

The average car only does about 20 miles a day, so that's one charge a week for most modern EVs.

Good point. Frustrating though as it's an obvious thing to incentivise to offpeak (along with tumble dryers and dishwashers).

And once enough folk are charging cars etc, then 'off peak' power won't be off peak at all.
M

Setting bits of kit up with a timer is not what I call smart. I thought the idea was to be able to decide YOUR priorities e.g. I need a minimum of 50% charge by 7am, whatever the cost. Or, I don't need the car tomorrow, charge as much as you can as long as the price is below 20p/unit etc. Smart scheduling will also soon be the only way of not blowing up your local substation (ok, maybe not blowing up, just blowing a fuse). If you can get your car or charger to co-operate with others now we're talking!

As pointed out elswhere, most folks don't have a clue about actual loads which is one of the reasons domestic "smart" meters have been pushed so hard (readout in money). They are not really smart yet either as most don't meter out as well as in.

I believe there are now smart car chargers out there that can do this, or nearly this, but integration with metering, other heavy loads and costs I doubt so mass adoption (and usefulness) is a long way off.

Full disclaimer, I don't yet have a smart meter at home but I can find out exactly how much I am pulling from the grid at any moment (right now 0.3kW, but it does depend on a different bit of kit).

Interesting trial running by a company called Equiwatt that gave smart plugs to some homeowners in Oxfordshire.  When network load is reaching point to require additional generation capacity, it will shut off the device you have nominated to shed load (like a freezer say) for max 1 hour.
You then collect points and (slowly) build up to rewards.
They also offer links into smart EV charging - but I don't have an EV vehicle