Lifestyle
These cities are driving electric vehicle growth worldwide
What cities are driving the electric vehicle revolution around the world? This question was just addressed by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). It turns out that their recent report includes: “cities with the highest electric vehicle uptake through 2016 and examines the associated local policies, incentives, and infrastructure that have helped spur electric vehicle sales growth.” So where are these exceptional cities? Let’s dive in to the ICCT’s report to find out.
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Above: Cars like the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S are becoming more common on today’s city streets (Image: U.S. Department of Energy)
The report notes that, “Electric vehicle sales are increasing across almost all markets, but are still disproportionately concentrated in a small number of major markets.” To that end, the report identifies 20 cities that are responsible for a whopping 40% of electric vehicles. The ICCT names these 20 their electric vehicle capital cities.
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Above: Cumulative EV sales expressed as percentages of global EV stock through 2016 (Source: ICCT)
So who does this report name as the EV capital of the world? There are a few answers to that question, but, “Los Angeles leads the world with more than 100,000 cumulative electric vehicle sales.” That said, China’s Shanghai and Beijing are not far behind LA. However, when looking at electric vehicle sales shares: “The Norwegian cities of Bergen and Oslo… [led with] 36% and 33% respectively.”
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Above: Cumulative EV sales and sales shares in ICCT’s EV “capital cities” in 2016 (Source: ICCT)
Another key factor for the success of electric vehicles in these cities is access to EV charging infrastructure. Although the majority of charging occurs at home or work, the report notes that public “charging infrastructure is a key enabler and driver of the electric vehicle market.” EV infrastructure improves access to more charge points and adds to the ease (and enjoyment) of road trips.
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Above: The BMW i3 and Tesla Model S park-and-charge (Image: Sierra Club)
So which city wins for EV charging infrastructure? Cities in: “Norway and the Netherlands have the highest concentration of public charge points… [but importantly] cities in China have a much higher share of DC fast charge points, at 16%–45% of all public charge points.” Of course, it’s important to note that Tesla owners enjoy additional benefit from the company’s proprietary Supercharger network.
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Above: Looking at EV charging points in electric vehicle capital cities (Source: ICCT)
In addition, the report notes that public policies that incentivize EV ownership are clearly “correlated with higher electric vehicle uptake.” Not surprisingly, these top 20 cities benefit from financial incentives often determined at the national level. The following table (see below) shows ICCT’s assigned value of total financial incentives for EVs in each capital city. So where does the financial incentive value for EV ownership spike the most? Norway’s Bergen and Oslo shine here — rising high above other cities worldwide.
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Above: A look at the total financial incentive value for electric cars, by EV capital city (Source: ICCT)
What conclusions can we draw from the ICCT’s report? “These cities are each in their own way helping to overcome electric vehicle barriers, propelling the market forward, and leading by example.” That said, what can we learn from these trailblazing cities? “The path ahead toward full electrification will surely require sustained efforts with policy, much greater electric vehicle infrastructure build-out, and broader awareness as lower-cost and longer-range electric vehicles enter the fleet.”
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Note: Article originally published on evannex.com, by Matt Pressman
Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
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Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
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It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
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