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.
Chatting with the Dealer
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.
Funky updated
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.
The Yellow Turtle
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…
Problems with roaming in Portugal
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.
Also not working
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.
Couldn’t get them to work
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.
Charging in Bristol
Drove to Bristol. Parked at a Health Club and Spa to charge the car. Checked with reception if I needed to register my car, I didn’t. I then went to plug the car in. I couldn’t get it to charge, so moved to the second charger, this time it worked.
I had some jobs to do, so I did those before heading back to the car. I didn’t do a full charge, but drove off to Cabot Circus.
I had intended to top up my charge using their charge points, but they were all full. So, I had to park in a “normal” space. I had sufficient charge to get home.
Emergency Steering Function doesn’t work
Finally worked out why I was getting alerts with my Funky. I had the Emergency Steering Function enabled. This feature will ensure that you don’t drift off the road.
Well let’s just say it doesn’t work. Well it does work, just that it doesn’t work with the roads I drive on. After doing some “testing” I found that the system wasn’t getting confused with the lines (or lack of lines) on the road. It was also inconsistent.
So now I am turning it off when I start driving. I was also frustrated to see that despite switching it off, the car doesn’t remember that setting, so I have to turn it off every time I get into the car.
Uninstalling Wireless NIC on the iMac
Back in November 2020 following the installation of FTTP I did buy a TP-Link Archer T3U AC1300 mini wireless adapter for my iMac which was too far away to be cabled to the router.
This though was no faster than the built in Airport card, however I could use it on my MacBook which had a slower card and I have managed to achieve speeds in excess of 400Mbps, but not quite the 800Mbps I was hoping for.
In the menu bar though on the iMac was the remnants of the Wireless NIC installation. I never really worried about it, and clicking it just told me the TP-Link Archer T3U AC1300 mini wireless NIC wasn’t installed. I knew that.
However I did recently decide to see if I could remove it from the menu bar.
What you need to do is hold the Option key when clicking the icon in the menu bar, and then you get the following menu item.
So I clicked Uninstall USB-WiFi.
I was presented with a confirmation screen.
I clicked Yes.
I now no longer have the wireless NIC icon in my menu bar and the driver is no longer installed as well.