After waiting for a fair while, Apple CarPlay is now available for the Ora Funky Cat (or should I be calling it the Ora 03) as a dealer installed update.
CarPlay is a smarter, safer way to use your iPhone while you drive. You can get directions, make calls, send and receive messages, and enjoy your favourite music. All on your car’s built‑in display. And CarPlay now features more app categories and custom wallpapers for your CarPlay Dashboard.
It was announced on the 20th May and I booked my car in for the update with my local dealer. I took it in on the 24th May and left it with the dealer.
Well the CarPlay update to the Ora didn’t go to plan…
The dealer had the car for the whole day, but didn’t start the update until close to the end of the day. The update failed, so they needed to keep the Funky Cat to try again. Alas it was a bank holiday and I was working away in London this week. So the plan is to pick up the car on the following Friday.
In the meantime I was given a courtesy car, a Nissan Juke. After spending ten months driving the Funky Cat, it was quite disconcerting to go back to a manual petrol car. I had to remember to change gear.
Unfortunately failed update was a lot more serious than just a failed software upgrade. The update failed for an unknown reason and essentially bricked the head unit in the car. The head unit needed to be replaced, and it had to be sent from China.
Eventually the part arrived and was installed.
I was finally able to pick up the Funky Cat on the 20th August, just under three months from when I had dropped it off. You could tell it had spent most of the time parked somewhere out of the way, as it was covered with cobwebs and a fair amount of bird droppings. The first thing I did was take it to a car wash.
After all that they still didn’t do the CarPlay update.
Spent time re-learning how to drive the Funky Cat, remembering there is no clutch nor a gearstick. I also realised how much I had missed driving the Funky Cat and the whole electric vehicle experience. I also realised that the Funky Cat was bigger than the Nissan Juke, but thought the Juke felt cramped inside, the outside felt huge, like an armoured car.
After sorting things out with the dealer, I booked in the update for the 6th September.
They did it in the morning and I am really pleased with the update. I had used CarPlay a fair bit with the Juke, so knew what to expect. It looked really good on the Funky Cat dashboard. Waze worked, as did my music apps.
Both happy and relieved it is all done now.
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