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Tesla recently sent out an update to its vehicle “summon” feature – which it calls Actually Smart Summon – and as a result, one Tesla owner can no longer use his car.

For years and years, Tesla has touted a “summon” feature, allowing owners to move their cars remotely.

It started off with simple forward/backward movement, but then Tesla promised a “smart” summon which would be able to navigate through parking lots, and even be able to drive coast-to-coast all on its own to pick you up on the other side of the country.

Needless to say – and much like Tesla’s famed Full Self-Driving feature – some of these features haven’t been fully implemented yet. There was a smart summon feature active for some time on vehicles equipped with radar, but when Tesla shifted to vision-only for autonomy tasks, the feature disappeared for some time.

But in September, Tesla finally rolled out Actually Smart Summon, promising to finally bring remote-driving ability to cars, as long as they are on private property (parking lots, long driveways and the like).

The system has shown some impressive uses so far, but is still limited to certain use cases (for example, I can’t use it for the one thing I’d use it for – swapping the position of vehicles from my driveway to the parking spot in front of my house on a low-traffic incredibly wide street, both because it’s a public road and because the system can’t handle the gentle slope of my driveway).

So even though the system is often used as a party trick, there are still people who find legitimate uses for features like these and have come to rely on them – but in the case of one Tesla owner from Nova Scotia, that reliance has turned sour with the most recent update, which broke the system and has left his car stuck in its parking spot for the last two weeks.

Tesla changed summon, now one owner’s car is stuck

We were contacted by Jamie, a Tesla owner in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a simple photo showing his interesting parking situation, which he’s been using for the last four and a half years successfully. In fact, he bought the car specifically for this feature as it’s the only way his parking spot would work, and he commonly gets comments from people wondering how he gets his car out of there.

Which was all fine, until a week or two ago. Upon receiving Tesla firmware version v12.5.4.1, something broke and his car will no longer move.

This version of the software did make changes to both Actually Smart Summon and the old “Dumb” summon. The latter is the system Jamie had been using all along.

Now, when he tries to use the function, it fails in any number of ways, as the car detects walls too close and aborts the move, even if he can visually confirm that the situation is safe. The car cycles through various error messages – “cannot find clear path to pin,” “autopilot temporarily degraded,” “stopped due to unexpected error,” and the like. He’s been able to get it to move some amount occasionally, but estimates it only works one out of every 20 tries or so, whereas it used to be 100% reliable.

Jamie said he tried to contact Tesla customer service three times, who were unable to provide help other than suggesting the default “two finger salute” software reset. They offered no ability to do a software rollback to a functioning version of the software.

He also contacted the local service center – which he managed to bring the car to by opening the trunk and crawling in through the whole car up to the driver’s seat, despite an ailing back which added more difficulty to this comical situation.

At the service center – where he said they were very helpful – they were able to confirm the existence of the problem by stacking boxes beside the car and showing that it wouldn’t move. But they couldn’t offer a rollback, and offered no timeline for a potential fix.

So, he drove the car home, parked it, plugged it in, and has mostly left it there. Now, he walks places instead of driving, though that that won’t remain an option as the Nova Scotian winter sets in. Street parking is also not really an option, as Halifax routinely bans overnight street parking when snow is expected, to allow for snow clearance.

He could charge elsewhere in town, but on level 2 that would require walking to and from a charger, potentially at odd hours, or driving a half hour outside town to the nearest supercharger. The best situation, of course, would be to use his parking spot and charger as he has for the last four and a half years, until this “fix” was applied.

Jamie figures that, while he’s certainly in a niche situation, among the millions of Tesla owners out there, there must be other owners who are seeing similar issues right now. While he’d like a fix for his own problem, he’s also concerned for other owners who could be seeing the same issue.

This isn’t the first time Tesla has suddenly rolled out changes that affected parking. In 2022, Tesla abruptly removed ultrasonic parking sensors from cars, claiming that it would move to a vision-only park assist system. This took about six months to roll out, and is still being improved over time, but surprised some buyers who bought cars expecting this common feature and didn’t receive it.

Electrek’s Take

We at Electrek occasionally get reports from individual customers who have individual problems, but we don’t always do articles for every one of them, especially if there’s some other solution available. We usually like to wait for a pattern to develop.

But this was such an interesting problem, and brings up an important point: it highlights one of the issues with rolling out new software updates, especially when it comes to autonomous driving, or really any other device that people rely on: it’s all well and good to have a feature that works most of the time, but if people rely on a feature, you need to ensure that it works every time.

And this is a relatively minor automation feature in the scheme of things. But it demonstrates the difficulty of automated driving tasks, where in order to receive acceptance, systems don’t need to just work most of the time, but all of the time. A true, driverless, level 5 system needs to be perfectly reliable, even in “niche” situations – and we can’t have software updates coming along and breaking functionality when there’s more at stake than just one person’s parking spot.

And a final note, we can sometimes solve problems simply by emailing an automaker’s communications department to ask them what’s going on. I’ve used this method before, and companies have been able to address an issue for the customer, solving the problem before it turns into bad press for them. Unfortunately, though, this is not possible with Tesla.

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25% of new cars sold globally in 2025 were EVs – here’s who bought them

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8 hours ago

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December 18, 2025

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25% of new cars sold globally in 2025 were EVs – here's who bought them

EVs sold 2025

BYD store in Thailand (Source: BYD)

More than 25% of new cars sold globally in 2025 are now electric, according to new analysis from energy think tank Ember. This growth is increasingly driven by emerging markets that, only a few years ago, had minimal adoption of EVs. 

Where the EVs sold in 2025

The analysis reveals that the EV race has truly gone global. There are now 39 countries where EVs make up more than 10% of new car sales, compared with just four in 2019.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) became a significant force in global EV adoption in 2025. Singapore and Vietnam have reached EV sales shares of around 40%, overtaking levels seen in the UK and the EU. 

Indonesia has reached 15% this year, surpassing the US for the first time. Thailand has reached 20% and has sold more EVs in the first three quarters of 2025 than Denmark. These shifts demonstrate how rapidly the region is transitioning from a low base to a position of leadership. 

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Euan Graham, electricity and data analyst at Ember, said: “This is a major turning point. In 2025, the center of gravity has moved. Emerging markets are no longer catching up; they are leading the shift to electric mobility. These countries see the strategic advantages of EVs, from cleaner air to reduced fossil fuel imports.” 

Other regions are also gaining momentum. In Latin America, Uruguay has reached a 27% EV share, roughly in line with the EU. Mexico and Brazil continue to show steady growth, now surpassing Japan, where the EV share has remained around 3% since 2022. Türkiye has reached 17%, overtaking Belgium to become Europe’s fourth-largest BEV market by volume.

Emerging markets are buying Chinese EVs

Since mid-2023, almost all the growth in Chinese EV exports has come from non-OECD markets. Brazil, Mexico, the UAE, and Indonesia are among the top 10 destinations for Chinese EV exports this year, as their governments have introduced policies to support EV adoption, including reduced taxes and incentives for domestic manufacturing. 

As more countries take up EVs, the impact on fossil fuel demand is already tangible. EVs are three times more efficient than ICE vehicles, which means they deliver significant reductions in oil use even in countries that still rely heavily on fossil fuels for power generation. In Brazil, where electricity is mostly clean, BEVs cut fossil fuel demand by around 90%. In Indonesia, the number was reduced by nearly half.

Graham said, “Emerging markets will shape the future of the global car market. The choices made now on charging infrastructure and early support will determine how fast this momentum continues.” 

Read more: LAZ Parking plans EV chargers in 50,000 everyday parking spots

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Coinbase adds prediction markets and stock trading in push to be one-stop trading app

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9 hours ago

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December 17, 2025

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Coinbase adds prediction markets and stock trading in push to be one-stop trading app

Brian Armstrong, chief executive officer of Coinbase Global Inc., speaks during the Messari Mainnet summit in New York, on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Coinbase is making its biggest push yet to reposition itself as a mainstream trading and financial platform, moving beyond crypto and into the broader retail investing stack as competitors show there’s real money in always-on engagement products.

The digital asset exchange announced Wednesday that it’s rolling out a major slate of new products designed to turn Coinbase into a one-stop financial app, expanding into stocks, more advanced trading, and prediction markets, while doubling down on its on-chain ecosystem and new tools for businesses, developers, and automated financial guidance.

While many of these offerings have been telegraphed for months, Coinbase says the products are now built, and ready to go.

CEO Brian Armstrong is looking to make his platform the place to trade everything.

That includes stocks, a streamlined futures and perpetuals experience, and prediction markets through Kalshi, alongside a tokenization roadmap aimed at eventually bringing more traditional assets on-chain, including equities.

The area of prediction markets, in particular, is quickly getting crowded.

DraftKings has moved to buy its own exchange, FanDuel is teaming up with CME, and Polymarket is entering the U.S. through a newly approved venue. Robinhood, meanwhile, is putting LedgerX at the center of its regulated push.

The defining rivalry in the space remains Kalshi versus Polymarket, regulated rails versus crypto-native liquidity.

Armstrong said the category’s appeal isn’t just trading, but its insight into sentiment, and what people think will happen next on any given topic.

“If you look at things like economic indicators … or elections, people are using prediction markets to try to figure out what is going to happen next month,” Armstrong told CNBC. “Maybe1% of people use it as an asset class to trade, and 99% of people are using it as a way to figure out what’s going to happen — almost like a competitor to traditional media or maybe even entertainment.”

In the company’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts in October, Armstrong showed just how easily prediction market wagers can be manipulated, rattling off several words that were being bet on.

“I was a little distracted because I was tracking the prediction market about what Coinbase will say on their next earnings call,” Armstrong said. “And I just want to add here the words bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain, staking and Web3 to make sure we get those in before the end of the call.”

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Robinhood underscored that shift this week by expanding prediction markets into sports-style contracts that resemble parlays and prop bets, and by touting the category as its fastest-growing business by revenue.

Coinbase is now bringing the same kind of outcome trading into its own ecosystem, but as a part of a much wider bet that the next-generation brokerage is a single app that blends traditional assets, derivatives, and on-chain rails.

Coinbase is pairing the trading expansion with a tokenization roadmap that signals where it wants the platform to go next, bringing more traditional assets on-chain, including equities.

The company is launching Coinbase Tokenize, an institutional stack intended to support real-world asset tokenization.

Armstrong framed the expansion as a bridge to something bigger.

Trading stocks, he said, is “a good first step,” but the real goal is tokenized equities. If Coinbase can get tokenized equity live, he said, it could “democratize access for people over the world,” and unlock new market structure in the U.S., including more robust, professional futures markets tied to equities.

“So this is the starting point,” he said.

The announcement also extends Coinbase’s push to become a provider of on-chain liquidity — not just a venue for listed tokens.

For businesses and developers, Coinbase is widening its platform story beyond retail trading. The company said Coinbase Business is becoming available to eligible customers in the U.S. and Singapore, and it’s rolling out an expanded API suite spanning custody, payments, trading, and stablecoins.

Armstrong’s broader thesis is that crypto isn’t a niche category, it’s an upgrade cycle for the financial system itself.

“Crypto is updating all financial services,” he said, suggesting that every major asset class will move on-chain over time, from prediction markets and equities to commodities, and eventually real-world assets like real estate.

Even the largest asset managers, he said, are signaling they want to migrate funds on-chain, positioning Coinbase as a central platform for that transition.

Coinbase is also introducing “custom stablecoins” for companies that want branded stablecoin rails, and spotlighting x402, a payments standard the company says is meant to make stablecoin payments easier to attach to web requests — including for automated commerce and agent-driven transactions.

The strategic throughline is retention and diversification.

Coinbase already owns a large crypto-native audience, and it wants that customer to stay on its platform for every asset class, even when crypto volumes cool and transaction revenue compresses.

WATCH: What to know about Robinhood’s new prediction market features

What to know about Robinhood's new prediction market features

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First savings hits Navee XT5 Pro long-range off-road e-scooter for $1,400, Anker SOLIX 60,000mAh power station $108, Lectric, more

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13 hours ago

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December 17, 2025

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First savings hits Navee XT5 Pro long-range off-road e-scooter for ,400, Anker SOLIX 60,000mAh power station 8, Lectric, more


Our mid-week Green Deals is headlined by a surprise first-ever holiday deal on the brand-new Navee XT5 Pro Long-Range Off-Road Electric Scooter at $1,400, which boasts some serious premium upgrades. Right behind it, we have Anker’s SOLIX C200 DC Compact Power Station, and its larger C300 counterparts, that start from $108, as well as a roundup of Lectric’s three e-bikes getting up to $500 price cuts and $220 bundles that start from $1,399, Bluetti’s current 48-hour Christmas flash sale through December 18, and much more waiting for you below. And don’t forget about the hangover deals that are collected together at the bottom of the page, like yesterday’s Velotric Christmas e-bike Gift Season Sale, the new $999 low on Heybike’s dual-battery Hauler cargo e-bike, and more.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

First savings just hit Navee’s newest feature-packed XT5 Pro long-range off-road electric scooter for $1,400

Navee’s official Amazon storefront is undercutting the brand’s direct Christmas Sale pricing on its brand-new XT5 Pro Long-Range Off-Road Electric Scooter for $1,399.99 shipped, after clipping the on-page $200 off coupon. This model just hit the market early last month with a $1,500 price tag, which is where it’s still priced direct from the brand. At Amazon, however, it started off priced at $1,700 and dropped to $1,600 right before Black Friday, with today’s deal being the first official chance at cash savings that we’ve spotted. While this deal lasts, you’re getting $100 off the going rate that sets the bar for future discounts, while also upgrading your commutes/joyrides with the brand’s take on a superscooter.

The most high-end of Navee’s e-scooter lineup that even outpaces the flagship ST3 Pro, this new XT5 Pro Long-Range Electric Scooter is an off-roading superscooter that comes with bolstered durability from its carbon steel frame, while also being the second series to boast the brand’s unique damping arm suspension system. It arrives equipped with a 750W motor that can peak as high as 2,200W for seriously monstrous power, with the entire thing powered by a 596.7Wh battery. This combination gives it a travel range of up to 46.6 miles on a single six-hour charge (with a 1.5-hour flash charging feature available), maxing out at 31 MPH top speeds for the thrill seekers amongst you. It even comes with an add-on option through a 468Wh external battery (sold separately) that increases the mileage with up to 34 miles of extra travel.

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As Navee’s XT5 Pro electric scooter is a more premium commuter, it should be no surprise that it comes loaded with a premium array of features, including smart features like Apple Find My, Bluetooth proximity locking/unlocking, app-based setting customization, and more. Your riding experience is also further heightened by the stock features that include a triple braking system (dual front and rear disc brakes, as well as a rear regenerative EABS brake), 12-inch off-road tubeless tires, an auto-on headlight, mecha-style logo lamps in the stem, a brake-activated taillight, front and rear built-in turn signals, the brand’s traction control system, a 5-inch full color display, and much more.

As I mentioned, alongside this surprise Navee XT5 electric scooter deal, the brand also has its ongoing Christmas Sale with up to 30% discounts still going right now, which offers its e-scooters at some of the best rates starting from $200.

Anker SOLIX C200 DC power station on rock with drone, projector, and speaker

Get 60,000mAh/192Wh support for devices from Anker’s SOLIX C200 DC power station at $108 for Xmas, more from $162

As part of its ongoing Christmas Sale, Anker SOLIX is offering its C200 DC 60,000mAh/192Wh Compact Power Station at $108.49 shipped, which matches in price at Amazon while also beating out the current price of the predecessor PowerCore Reserve by $7. While it carries a $200 MSRP, you can find it starting lower at $170 at Amazon, with discounts over the year having taken the costs as low as $100, most recently during Black Friday through Cyber Monday over two weeks ago. You’re looking at the third-best price we have tracked while the $62 savings last ($92 off the MSRP), only beaten out by that $100 low and $105 rates that sporadically pop up. If you want to go bigger, you can also find the C300 DC and C300 AC 90,000mAh models starting from $162.

If you want to learn more about these compact power stations, be sure to check out our original coverage of these Christmas deals here. You can also go even larger by taking advantage of Anker’s current SOLIX Christmas Sale deals, with up to 65% discounts across its entire power station lineup that starts from $162.

man standing with Lectric ONE e-bike

Save up to $720 on these three Lectric e-bikes with price cuts to lows starting from $1,399 for Xmas

Looking back in on Lectric’s ongoing Christmas Holiday Sale event, we wanted to shine a spotlight on the three e-bikes receiving rare price cuts over the usual free bundle packages – a first for so many models at once. The biggest of these price cuts that also retains a bundle is Lectric’s ONE e-bike Long-Range Belt-Drive Commuter e-bike with a $220 FREE bundle of gear at $1,899 shipped. This entire package would normally run you $2,619 at full price, with a repeat of the $500 price cut we’ve been seeing more frequently since Labor Day to its all-time lowest tracked price, along with a FREE rear cargo rack and fender set. While the deadline to receive it before Christmas has passed, you can still secure it and all the other e-bikes with some of their best deals to kick-off your new year with a new commuting option.

If you want to learn more about this premium e-bike, or the other models getting Christmas price cuts, be sure to check out our original coverage of these deals here, while you can also browse the brand’s full Christmas lineup here.

woman using Bluetti Elite 10 mini power station to charge laptop on plane

For 48 hours, you can pick up Bluetti’s latest Elite 10 Mini power station at a new $109 Xmas flash sale low (Save $90), more

As part of its ongoing Christmas Sale, Bluetti has a 48-hour flash sale running that is taking up to $199 off three different offers, with a notable standout in the Elite 10 Mini Power Station for $109 shipped, which sadly cannot be stacked with the exclusive 5% off savings code, but does beat out its Amazon pricing by $10. While carrying a $239 MSRP direct from the brand, you can find it starting lower at Amazon for $199, with the holiday discounts that started last week having only taken the costs down to $149, before falling to $119 and then $109 during this flash sale window. While these $90 savings ($130 off the MSRP) last through December 18, you’re able to score it at a new all-time low price, with another flash offer being two of these stations for $199 shipped.

If you want to learn more about this mini power station, or browse the full lineup of temporary deals, be sure to check out our original coverage of this flash sale here.

RENPHO foot massager next to Christmas tree and presents
REDTIGER F7NP dash cam
Anker eufy solar smart security camera mounted on outdoor wall in rain
Lectric e-bike Christmas banner

Best Winter EV deals!

Best new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.


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