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Umar Shakir

Umar Shakir

News Reporter

Umar Shakir is a news reporter for The Verge, covering electric cars and more. He's spent over 15 years in IT support beforehand, including managing Macs for a University and also fixing them at the Genius Bar. Umar likes collecting video game cartridges, watching football, and hanging in shopping center parking lots waiting for his EV to charge.

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Tesla’s Bot is doing basic bot things.

A new video shows off the company’s Optimus robot running through some calibration cycles for its limbs before successfully putting matching colored blocks with their corresponding trays. It’s a menial task that the Tesla Bot has done before, but this time a human tries to confuse it. The bot then relieves stress with some yoga poses. You know, bot stuff.


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Expect to see more EV chargers at more Marriott hotels.

The hotel chain announced a new deal with EV Connect to install branded electric vehicle charging stations at its hotels in the US and Canada.

Renting or traveling with an EV will be an easier choice if you know there’s somewhere to charge it, and Marriott may also need to compete with Hilton, which just announced a new charging deal with Tesla.


Jaguar cuts a Tesla Supercharging deal, too.

In new US EV charging news, the automaker will adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) port in its next-generation EVs starting in 2025. Current and future I-Pace customers will also get adapters to use the 12,000-plus Tesla Superchargers beforehand, but there’s no timeframe for availability.

Jaguar is joining the likes of FordGMRivianVolvo, PolestarNissanMercedes-BenzFisker, and Honda on essentially the same deal to get on Tesla’s winning connector.


a jaguar vehicle parked in front of a tesla supercharger stall
Charge your I-Pace at a Tesla Supercharger with an adapter — whenever that comes out.
Image: Jaguar
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OnePlus’ upcoming foldable might come in October.

At TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday, the company announced its new OnePlus Open is releasing “soon,” but leaker Max Jambor is providing some more specific insight: apparently, it will get its full reveal on October 19th, and a release soon after.

OnePlus hinted at the foldable’s name, “Open,” in July. Jambor reported that month that the device had an August release date.