AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)07/11 Report--

Employees of Xiaopeng Automobile, a new car maker in China, have been repeatedly sued by foreign companies. Apple sued former employee Zhang Xiaolang for stealing trade secrets. Zhang Xiaolang joined Xiaopeng Automobile in May 2018. Tesla accused Cao Guangzhi, a former engineer, of stealing Autopilot self-driving technology secrets, and Cao Guangzhi joined Xiaopeng Auto earlier this year.

According to foreign media reports, Tesla sued Cao Guangzhi, an employee of Xiaopeng Automobile, who admitted uploading a zip file containing Autopilot source code to his personal iCloud account at the end of 2018, while he was still working for Tesla, according to court documents submitted by Cao Guangzhi. Cao Guangzhi claimed that extensive efforts had been made to delete files before leaving Tesla and had not transferred any information to Xiaopeng.

Tesla stated in an indictment filed in March that when Cao Guangzhi was ready to join China Xiaopeng, he copied more than 300,000 files related to Autopilot source code and uploaded a complete copy of Autopilot related source code to his iCloud account.

On January 3 this year, Cao Guangzhi suddenly applied for his resignation to Tesla and then moved to China Xiaopeng Automobile as the head of self-driving awareness of the company.

Tesla argued in the indictment that Autopilot is a research and development achievement that Tesla has invested more than hundreds of millions of dollars over the past five years, and Cao Guangzhi and Xiaopeng Motor do not have any right to use Tesla's Autopilot-related technology.

At that time, Xiaopeng Motor Company responded: "before and after Mr. Cao Guangzhi joined the post, Xiaopeng Motor did not find any possible violations claimed by Tesla." A further investigation has been launched into the matter. "

Cao Guangzhi admitted in court documents that he used his personal iCloud account to create backup copies of some Tesla information at the end of 2018 and received an employment letter from Xiaopeng Motor on December 12, according to foreign media reports.

According to the documents, Cao Guangzhi claimed that before leaving Tesla, he "made extensive efforts to delete any such Tesla files from his personal iCloud account", but he did not say whether all the files had been deleted. Tesla did not admit to the number of document thefts accused by him.

Mr Cao's lawyer argued that any source code or other confidential information left on his device after leaving Tesla would only exist "because of negligence". At the same time, it also argued that Cao Guangzhi "did not visit and use any 'autopilot trade secrets'" after leaving the company, nor did he transfer any information to Xiaopeng.

He Xiaopeng, founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, once commented on the matter: Xiaopeng Automobile will never do secret theft, nor will it allow others to do such a thing to Xiaopeng.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat