Review: Ora Funky Cat

You’ll be forgiven for being utterly unfamiliar with car manufacturer Ora, a subsidiary of China’s Great Wall Automotive. The company is notable for getting Fiat’s attention after making a car that the Italian firm thought looked remarkably similar to its Panda (Italian courts agreed) and more recently for striking a partnership with BMW to produce the Mini Electric in China). Ora is the giant’s latest electric offering.

The Funky Cat—yes, it is called that—is Ora’s first foray into Europe. The car has found fans all over the internet, thanks to its cute design, friendly price point, and tech-heavy specs. After something of a wait, it’s finally available in the UK, so we spent some time with it. 

The Funky Cat has an edge on price compared to key rivals like the Cupra Born and Renault Megané eTech. Coming in at £31,995 ($37,962), and with few options to throw on top, it’s substantially cheaper than its more established rivals. And you won’t find batteries uncomfortably lodged in a chassis originally built for a gas engine; this platform is purpose-built for an electric powertrain. 

Looking at the specs, you may wonder what the catch is. A 48-kWh battery pack sends 171 PS to the front wheels, which allows for a sprightly 8.3-second 0-62-mph time and a 99-mph top speed. Range is 193 miles on a charge, Ora says. On a 100-kW DC charger, the battery tops off in under 45 minutes, while a 7-kW home charger will take understandably longer. 

Photograph: Great Wall Motor Group

However, that’s pretty average for a small(ish) EV. It’s the tech inside that seems impressive: a voice assistant, cameras that can tell if you’re tired (or have left a child or pet in the car), a 10.25-inch infotainment screen, 360-degree cameras and sensors that can see around the car, internet radio, OTA updates to add features as you go, wireless phone charging, adjustable drive modes, adjustable steering weights … it seems to have absolutely everything going for it. 

But a closer look at the car itself reveals a few flaws. Its paint, if caught in the right light, looks like an orange peel (despite being smooth to the touch, it has a strangely dappled effect). Inside, there are scratchy plastics, and no matter how fervently Ora wants you to think its quilted interior fabrics make it premium, they simply don’t. First Edition cars get a clunkily installed badge denoting their status, but it subtracts more than it adds. On the design front, it’s a sweet little thing, but it wouldn’t be out of place in a GTA game.

On the move, its tech is similarly almost there. There won’t be Apple CarPlay or Android Auto until the first half of 2023, so you need to rely on Ora’s own navigation efforts. It’s a decent effort, but audio instructions are often confusing, and at one point it warned of “a congestion” ahead. 

The infotainment screen has all the right toys, but the UI isn’t intuitive. Loaning the car to a friend will result in phone calls asking how to swap between nav and radio screens. On the radio front, the car comes with a 4G connection that enables internet radio and OTA services. So far, Ora will commit to 12 months of service, with more available via paid subscription further down the line. Web radio is a neat idea, but if the signal is patchy it stops working. It’s slow to buffer, and so the Funky Cat’s DAB tuner is far better suited to the job. 

Photograph: Great Wall Motor Group

Ora’s much-discussed active safety tech is impressive, but only to a point. Its 360-degree cameras have decent resolution and come on during low-speed maneuvering so you don’t accidentally clatter your Funky Cat. The car’s instrument display provides a number of views, but the ADAS display is the most useful: It shows you in real time what’s around the car and whether it’s safe to move. It works well. The UI is a treat too. The “Hi Ora” voice assistant is smart and seems able to understand contextual instructions without issue. 

What didn’t work so well was the car’s fatigue detection. No matter how many yawns we simulated, it didn’t bite, so either it can cleverly see through a ruse or it’s not quite as smart as Ora hopes. There are a host of other active safety systems and warnings in the car—do something that it thinks might end in disaster and it’ll scream at you to stop. While this is (incredibly) irritating, it does force you to drive within its parameters for fear of an aural flaming.

So the tech is almost there, as is the driving experience. In town, it shows off a smart little motor, eager to leap away from lights—often surprising onlookers—and decently quiet. Its steering has adjustable weighting (each option a variation on “lightish”), and it doesn’t offer pin-sharp feedback, but in the urban sprawl you feel enough in control. 

You can also play with the energy regeneration—from none to so much that you don’t need the brake pedal—which can add precious electricity back into the battery. The range between steps is big enough for every kind of driver to find their groove. Being a modern car, there are drive modes to play with as well. Much like the steering, there’s not a huge difference between them, though “Sport” does make things a little perkier. 

Town driving is the Ora Funky Cat’s bread and butter, but you may occasionally have to travel further afield. On the highway, the roar from the tires is distractingly intrusive, and it can only be partially masked by the stereo. When the roads get windy, the instant torque is entertaining, but this is not a hot hatch by any means. Don’t go in expecting it to take on a Cupra Born and come out favorably. 

For an EV in this sector to be worth its salt, it needs to be efficient. Range anxiety, despite an increasingly robust (but by no means perfect) public charging infrastructure, is still a very real thing. After a decent amount of mixed driving, my Funky Cat managed 4.71 miles per kWh, which, if Ora’s math is right, would give it far more than the WLTP-193-mile range. So, well done there.

Photograph: Great Wall Motor Group

Ora is entering the UK via a chosen distributor, rather than its own bespoke setup. The company’s reasoning is pretty sound: Why build an infrastructure for a new, niche product when you can hook into one that already exists? For now, Ora’s ambitions are small. It hopes to sell 5,000 cars in the UK by the end of 2023. With a combination of four brick-and-mortar sites, online sales, and more than 8,000 online registrations of interest, that’s not an unrealistic goal. But what about the US? Sadly, Ora says there are no plans to take the Funky Cat Stateside—but never say never. 

The Ora Funky Cat is an interesting first entry into the European market for Great Wall. But with all the bluster about advanced tech and premium feel, it’s just “almost there.” The fit and finish in these early cars was mixed, the tech promised a lot but tripped over itself on the delivery, and launching a car without CarPlay or Android Auto seems like a major misstep. To drive, it’s … a car. It’s not particularly memorable, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

The real advantage of the Funky Cat is that it’s notably cheaper than its competitors. But those pricier challengers come with more resolved tech (though the less said about the VW Group’s Touch Screen of Doom the better) and a more established network of dealers. Right now, the wise move would probably be to spend a bit more and feel a little safer with more established brands. After all, there’s time. This feels like just the beginning of the Ora story.