Author: jamesclay

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Why so slow…

I have to say that I still get confused what to call different kinds of chargers, what with fast chargers, rapid chargers and the like…

I was needing a quick charge after a slip road closure had caused me to make a twenty mile diversion. When the Funky Cat gets down to a 10% charge then the range and battery usage seems to be unreliable. I only wanted to add 15-25% extra charge on the battery, it was getting late, and motorway chargers are expensive. I stopped at the southbound Sedgemoor Services, firstly hoping that they did have chargers, and secondly they would work!

Unlike other services on the M5 they only have a few Gridserve chargers. The Exeter services on the other hand have over fifty chargers!

I have the Gridserve app, and despite having the app, I always seem to have to log into the app. Why is that? I always have an issue with that as the username and password are not saved in my iCloud passwords, I always forget that I used Apple to sign in… Once I got past that hurdle I plugged the car in. 

It was an CCS 50kW charger, so I thought, well this should put on enough charge in 15 minutes… 

Other Funky Cat owners have had issues with Gridserve chargers when the car was initially launched, however a software update (on both sides I believe) sorted that out.

It took a while for the charging to start, I was a little nervous about that, but eventually it got going.

It started off at 26kW which isn’t the best I’ve had from a charger, but with a 50KW charger I was expecting to get above 40kW. I went to get a coffee, and then looking on the GWM app I could see the car was charging slowly, more slowly than I was expecting. So, I checked the Gridserve app and was a little surprised (and a little annoyed) to see the charging level had dropped to 13kW. Well I had little choice, so I left it charging. As the charge level got closer to 25% I could see the charging level had risen to 26kW again.

Overall it had taken 30 minutes to get from just below 10% charge to 25%. At this point, it was getting late, so I stopped the charge and headed home.

Not sure why it was slow, was it my car, was it the charger? There was no one else using that charger, though other cars were charging on the other chargers, would that make such a difference? I don’t know. All I will say is, it was frustrating when all I really wanted to do was to get home.

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Falling range

When I first got the Funky Cat in August 2023 whenever I charged to 100% my predicted range was usually 185 miles. Not quite the 193 of the advertised WLTP range but pretty close.

For pretty much of 2025, well the warmer months, when I have charged to 100% I now have a predicted range of 175 miles, well with the odd exception.

I have noticed over the last month or so that the predicted range as now dropped to 172 miles when I charge to 100%. 

It’s known fact with electric vehicles that they do deteriorate over time and the storage capacity of the battery is reduced as it is used and charged.

The ORA Funky Cat I have is the original First Edition model and has the Lithium Ion Phosphate battery, which is fine to charge to 100% on a regular basis (or so I read on the internet), this is the battery in the newer ORA PURE. The newer ORA 03+ or even newer ORA PRO has a Ternary Lithium battery, which has a 30% increased capacity and range, however the advice from the internet on this kind of battery is not to charge to 100% on a regular basis.

As my car is a lease car, I will be returning it in just under a year, so I won’t have to worry too much about the falling range.

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Mapping it badly no more

Last year I blogged about some mapping issues I was having with Apple CarPlay on the Ora Funky Cat.

I have noticed a glitch with Apple Maps on CarPlay on the Ora Funky Cat ever since I upgraded to iOS 18. Starting CarPlay, opening Apple Maps I am in completely the wrong location.

Over the next few months I would have the same glitch with Waze and Google Maps. I would start the car, CarPlay would start and though I knew where I was as far as the car was concerned I was about 100 miles to the east.

Usually within a few minutes the error would correct itself and I would find that Waze would place me in the right location. It certainly was annoying, also when I actually needed the sat nav to work it was quite frustrating. One solution was to disable CarPlay and either use the built-in navigation (which worked fine) or use the phone separately and balance it on the dashboard.

This also impacted on Google Maps timeline, which would often show me having travelled a hundred miles in just a few minutes!

I kind of just lived with it.

I have noticed over the last few months that the glitch seems to have resolved itself. I’ve not updated the car, so it must have been an iPhone update. Whatever, now I have a sat nav works just fine, which is nice.

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But I don’t smoke…

So the month I took the Funky Cat to France (and Belgium) on a driving holiday. I have (kind of) gotten use to the way in which Ora (the voice assistant in the car) issues verbal warnings. Some are quite useful, most not so much. Please brake as you approach a black coloured car, or when coming up behind a parked car before driving around it, when you didn’t need to brake. 

On this trip though there was one voice warning which I was quite surprised by.

Please smoke in moderation and drive carefully.

One, I don’t smoke.

Two, I don’t intend to start smoking.

Not sure what I was doing that triggered the warning, but it happened a number of times. 

When the sun is shining low in the sky and I can be squinting, I sometimes get Ora telling me to concentrate and not get distracted, or don’t drive whilst tired, this warning however was the first time that she asked me to do something that I wasn’t doing. I don’t smoke and I don’t want to smoke!

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Some didn’t work

On a recent trip down to Plymouth, I had a number of issues with different chargers and the Funky Cat.

I had started off with a 100% charge and we headed down towards Plymouth. My plan had been to charge the Funky Cat in the Drake Circus Shopping Centre which had six Pod Point chargers. I arrived and found that there was only one charger available. Attempting to charge using the app failed. I did think it might be because I needed to top the app up, but even after doing that (well that was £10 lost) it still didn’t charge.  In the end I moved the car to a normal space.

After finishing the day in Plymouth, I started the journey home. The plan was to visit the Nuova Italia restaurant in Ilchester, and I certainly didn’t have enough charge to go straight home either. Having set off, I knew I would be able to charge at the Exeter Services on the M5. 

Having arrived at the services there were plenty of charging stations. As well as over thirty Tesla only superchargers there were another fifty Gridserve charging stations as well. However, upon plugging the Funky Cat into one of the Gridserve chargers I was unable to initiate a charge. Talking to the driver next to me it appeared that put of the fifty odd charging stations at the services, I had picked the one charger that wasn’t working.

After finding another charger and putting the Funky Cat on charge I went for a coffee.

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Driving and charging in France and Belgium

So last week I took the Funky Cat on a driving holiday to France with a side trip to Belgium. I had planned to use the Funky Cat last year on a similar holiday to France and Germany however that didn’t work out as the Funky Cat was stuck with the dealer getting updated at that time, so I did that trip in a Nissan Juke.

This time though I was able to take the Funky Cat. We were staying just outside Calais, so the overall distance of around 240 miles plus a ferry crossing. With a range of 175 odd miles I knew that I would need to charge up on the way.

I left Weston with a 100% charge and made our way to Dover. I did originally plan to stop at Reading Services, but in the end kept going until we reached the Cobham Services on the M25. They have both Ionity and Gridserve chargers there, both costing in the region of 79p per kWh. I put on a good charge there using the Ionity charger, which took two attempts to get charging, and I left the car to charge whilst I had a coffee. After we charged (and finished the coffee) we then headed down to Dover. There I added a small extra charge at the Tesla chargers in the St James Retail Park while we grabbed some snacks.

There was no issues with the ferry crossing, except I did get a notification on my phone (from the car) that the vehicle had moved abnormally. It said please check if it is stolen or collided. Well it was quite a rough crossing, so I think that was it.

Upon arrival I drove to the campsite and checked in.

Later that evening I saw that the local Lidl had EV charging available and it was just €0.39 per kWh which is significantly less than most super fast chargers in the UK. The next day I charged the Funky Cat from the Lidl charger. It took a little time to sort out and I had to use the Lidl app to set the charge going and the Lidl app decided to localise and only use French. I managed to sort out the app and payment and I set the Funky Cat on charge. So I did some shopping and was able to get a decent charge on the car. Later times I saw French motorists charge there who were obviously not shopping at Lidl. I did charge at Lidl a few times when we were there in France all without issue.

On one of the days on the holiday we drove to Bruges in Belgium. Upon arrival we parked in the underground parking garage ‘t Zand and there were charging facilities there as well, they had 65 charging stations for EVs. The charging used the Charge Assist app which, though I don’t recall installing, I did have on my phone. It took a couple of attempts to charge, but mainly because I picked the wrong charger on my first attempt. Also due to the vagaries of the mobile connection, I wasn’t sure if it was working until I was above ground. These were 22kW chargers so slower, but perfect for charging the Funky Cat whilst we spent the day in Bruges.

I also found that there were two charging stations on the campsite, these were 22kW chargers, but they required a €75 holding charge which I thought was extortionate for charging, so didn’t use those.

After leaving the campsite I did hope to use a charger at the Cité Europe Shopping Center which we had planned to stop at, however we didn’t find any (easily, though I am sure if we looked harder we may have found some).

Having caught the ferry home to Dover, I put the Funky Cat on charge at the St James Retail Park while we had some refreshments. This gave me sufficient charge to get to the westbound Reading Services on the M4, where I did an additional charge with the Tesla chargers there. No idea why there are only Tesla chargers at the westbound services and none at the eastbound, what’s that all about?

Overall charging the Funky Cat on this holiday was relatively stress free and I had minimal range anxiety. Unlike the last time I drove back from Dover what with road closures meant at one point I was down to a 1% charge. This time however, all was well, and I would be happy taking the Funky Cat back to Europe in the future.

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Roaming in France, oh and Belgium

Following issues with using data in Portugal a few years ago with excessive data usage on my iPhone, I did wonder if I should follow the  same process I had used in October 2023 when I went to Amsterdam, last year when I went to Europe, and when I went to Helsinki in February.

The process I would use is go into Settings -> Mobile Data and turn off virtually all the apps which could use mobile data.  I would turn off mobile data for virtually all my apps and also specifically iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup. I am pretty sure they were the culprits for my excessive data usage whilst in Portugal. This time I only turned off mobile data for iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup.

This trip was a six day trip to France, with a one day excursion to Bruges in Belgium.

However on my final day I ran out of data, having used the 12GB of fair use data. I had to spend £6 adding a single day of unlimited roaming data. Always a challenge to work out what app or process was the culprit, but I think it may have been Photos and iCloud. I also used the phone extensively for CarPlay.

On the side trip to Belgium, my phone did automatically switch to the Belgium mobile network, and switched back when we returned to France.

One interesting thing that did happen when we visited Cap Gris-Nez which is the bit of France closest to the UK was that my phone did switch to the UK network before switching back to a French network when we moved away from the cliff edge.

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150, what’s all that about?

When I first had the Funky Cat it was quite usual for me to achieve a maximum predicted range of 185 miles on a 100% charge. During the winter the predicted range drops quite dramatically, in some cases as low as 122 miles.

Recently in the good weather we’ve been having, and the car is now two years old, my usual maximum predicted range has been 175 miles. I was quite surprised though on a recent charge the range was down to 150 miles. 

Not sure if that was just a glitch, or down to recently using the air conditioning a fair bit. However, the next time I did a charge it was back up to 175.

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Roaming in Belgium, oh and France

Following issues with using data in Portugal a few years ago with excessive data usage on my iPhone, I did wonder if I should follow the  same process I had used in October 2023 when I went to Amsterdam, last year when I went to Europe, and when I went to Helsinki in February.

The process I would use is go into Settings -> Mobile Data and turn off virtually all the apps which could use mobile data.  I would turn off mobile data for virtually all my apps and also specifically iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup. I am pretty sure they were the culprits for my excessive data usage whilst in Portugal. This time (as an experiment) and as I was away only for a short time, I only turned off mobile data for iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup.

This trip I was taking the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Brussels. Obviously the train would have to travel through France before before arriving in Brussels in Belgium. 

After travelling through the tunnel, when I arrived in France, my phone automatically connected to the correct network and I was able to use 5G (and I guess make phone calls, but I didn’t make any calls). As I  crossed the border into Belgium I was switched automatically to a different network in Belgium.

I had no problems with data, texts and calls in Belgium and on my return visit there was another short stint with a French provider before entering the tunnel and rejoining Three when I was back in the UK.

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Tomato Stuff or the Pomodoro Technique

tomatoes
Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay

I use a range of techniques to getting things done. I do find one method doesn’t work for all tasks at all times.

When I have quite a substantial task to do then I often use the Pomodoro Technique or a variation of the technique.

The Pomodoro Technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. He was inspired by a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, which he used to track his study sessions during his university years. The method is named after the Italian word for tomato, “pomodoro,” in honour of this tool.

The essence of the technique is to work on the task for 25 minutes and then take a break. The key is to focus during those 25 minutes and then use the 5 minutes to relax.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to using the Pomodoro Technique: Choose a task: Select the task you want to work on.

Set the timer: Set a timer for 25 minutes.

Work intensely: Focus on the task without distractions until the timer goes off.

Take a short break: Take a 5-minute break to relax and recharge.

Repeat: Repeat steps 2-4 for a set number of pomodoros, typically four.

Take a longer break: After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15-30 minutes) before starting a new set.

In addition it makes sense during the breaks to move away from the computer, go outside, walk up and down the stairs, get a drink, or whatever. Don’t just move to another task or check email or similar.

The other key is to remove interruptions, so turn off notifications, quit Teams and Outlook, and spend the time focusing on the task at hand.