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Interestingly my Funky sent me an email informing me that a window was open, well it was unclosed.
I hadn’t quite closed one of the rear windows after accidental opening it earlier. It was only down by 3mm or so so actually wasn’t open, just not closed properly.
Quite surreal for the car to send me email.
I drove to York in my Funky from Weston super Mare. Should add that I didn’t see another Funky in the wild. Only time I have seen another Funky recently was at the dealer where there were loads!
Anyhow depending on how you go this is about 250 miles. More than the range of the Funky.
I had some interesting charging experiences which I thought I would share.
On my way up I stopped at work for some meetings and took the opportunity to do a full 100% charge. The predicted range was 169 miles.
Once I set off again I had planned to stop at the Hopwood Services on the M42. These have the troublesome Gridserve chargers but having checked the map I had a backup plan to use the InstaVolt chargers at the Corley Services on the M6.
As I approached Hopwood I realised I had a fair bit of charge in the car and seeing that the next services on the M42 were just thirty miles away I kept going and headed onto the services at Tamworth on the M42. They also had Gridserve chargers, but the Corley Services were still an option.
Once I was at Tamworth and having heard about the issues people have had with Gridserve chargers you can imagine my hesitation when connecting my Funky to a charger on the M42.
So I was quite pleased after connecting to the Gridserve charger all was working fine.
Also impressed with the speed of charging as well. I went from a 35% charge to an 85% charge in just over thirty minutes. Just about enough time for a cortado from Costa.
Should point out that my Funky had two dealer updates recently.
After charging and the coffee I again headed north.
As I approached York I stopped at the Moto Ferrybridge services for another coffee and a top up charge. The hotel I was staying at didn’t have EV charging. Not all the chargers at the services were in operation, but quite a few were available. I did my charge and then headed off to complete my journey. All in all it was quite painless and not much different compared to when I drove to York in a petrol car.
I was at The University of Warwick for a conference. In theory they had car charging places. These weren’t specific car charging ports, just standard three pin plus sockets.
I was down to under 15%, plugged my car in and headed off to the conference.
When I went to get my car, after eight hours on charge it now had a 69% charge.
It took about another eight hours on another day to get to 100%.
Informative experience.
After achieving a 100% charge the range was 165 miles, which was better than the 151 I had the last time I did a 100% charge.
Had a chat with a dealer today about the Ora Funky Cat. They actually had some Ora people in providing some information.
The long range version of the Funky Cat and the GT version are coming to the UK soon.
As we know CarPlay is on its way. However, he did give me this info, which was that CarPlay works 99% of the time. However sometimes it causes the display to go black. This though also causes the driver dashboard to go black as well. It’s this reason why they have delayed the release.
Also said this would be a dealer update and not an OTA update.
Also, the new Lightning Cat or Big Cat (the next Ora) will be available next year but they currently have models in Birmingham undergoing testing.
The Funky got taken to the dealer earlier this week, and as a result they gave Funky two software updates. One was to deal with the motor overheating yellow turtle fault, the other, well not sure, but suspect it was the Gridserve charging issue.
I’ve not seen any other Funky Cats in the wild, so it was quite intriguing to see so many at the dealer (don’t think this counts as the wild).
I was a little apprehensive driving Funky home, but everything was fine and I had no problems.
Well that wasn’t such a nice experience.
Drove off to Sand Bay and as we drove through Worle, I had a fault with the Ora Funky Cat. The reduced power warning light came on. Lost all power to the drive train. Pressing the accelerator didn’t work. I crawled to a halt, but managed to stop safely on the side of the road.
Turned the power off waited a few minutes and set off again. As soon as I slowed down for a junction it came on again and I lost power.
Managed to crawl home, stopping and powering off. Of course when the RAC arrived it had gone and didn’t come on during our test drive. I wasn’t sure though what to do about it.
This is the entry in the manual.
Reading on the web, it was apparent that this was down to the motor overheating. However the motor would only generally overheat either climbing a steep incline or thrashing it on the motorway. I was doing neither of those things. I then read on the web that there may be a software issue where when the motor overheats, the coolant doesn’t do the job.
Spent some time sorting out an appointment for the Funky.
Yes I know it is meant to be a tortoise…
Following some issues with roaming in Spain in 2022 I have been a little concerned about travelling abroad and if I would have connectivity issues. After Spain though, I had travelled to Ireland and Germany and both times everything just worked.
When I arrived at Faro Airport, my phone connected without issue to the MEO network and I was connected.
However what I wasn’t expecting was that twenty four hours later I would get a text from Three that I had used 80%of my data allowance of 12GB.
I have a Three contract with unlimited calls, unlimited texts, and unlimited data. As this is a pre-October 2021 contract I am able to use all those allowances when roaming, but there is a 12GB fair use limit. On all my previous visits abroad, I have never come close to reaching that limit.
So I was somewhat surprised to find that I had used it nearly all up within a day.
I am not sure why, but my suspicion was that iCloud Photos was the culprit, or iCloud Backup.
So first I turned off mobile data and then I went into Settings -> Mobile Data and turned off all the apps which could use mobile data. There were a lot.
Of course with unlimited data back in the UK, I never need to worry about apps using data.
Alas the hotel doesn’t have free Wi-Fi (well it does in reception) but in the rooms there is a charged for service.
Once in the plane (and in flight mode) I enabled mobile data for all my apps so when I landed back in the UK I would be back where I was when I left.
Towards the end of the week I felt more confident in using mobile data. In the end I never used all the 12GB allowance, but it did make me think about how I will be using a phone if and when I go abroad again.
When I was considering an electric vehicle, I was concerned about where I could charge the car. Having failed to use the chargers at Queensway in Worle, I had seen that there electric charging points in the Carlton Street Car Park in Weston-super-Mare.
You can imagine my disappointment when I headed into town to to park at the Carlton Street Car Park and use their charging stations and they weren’t operational. There was no indication why they weren’t working, and no information on if and when they would be operational again.
So, I drove round to Tesco and parked in their car park instead.
When I was considering an electric vehicle, I was concerned about where I could charge the car. I had seen electric charging points around Weston, including some in the Queensway shopping centre in Worle, next to Aldi.
On a shopping trip I had planned to use these charging points. They did not work with my contactless debit card. However, despite downloading an app, I couldn’t get them to work.
Having spent too much time trying to get them to work, I gave up and headed off to park in a “normal” space.