Ladbrokes 立博Xpeng, Tesla escalate battle over alleged theft of Autopilot secrets

On January 7, 2022, Tesla asked a court to force Xpeng to disclose all its autonomous driving source code since November 2022, when Xpeng started contacting Cao, as well as images of computer hard drives of multiple Xpeng persons including its founder He Xiaopeng.

File photo/Zhang Xiaoqing (NBD)

XPeng also said it had hired third-party experts right after the lawsuit to conduct forensic investigation, which showed no traces of Teslas code and information being transferred into Xpeng.

The statement came two days before Xpengs launch of electric sports sedan model P7, which promises autonomous driving functions for highways, urban roads and valet parking.

Cao admitted in July last year that he did download Teslas technology document on his personal devices, but only for the sake of remote working. He said he had deleted these documents before leaving Tesla, and had never transferred them to Xpeng.

According to the filings Xpeng submitted to court on March 31 to rebut Teslas demands, Xpeng in June 2022 offered to Tesla forensic images of Caos computer at Xpeng, which included Xpengs autonomous driving source code from November 2022 to March 21, 2022, the date Tesla filed the lawsuit.

Apr. 26 (NBD) – Chinese electric vehicle startup Xpeng said Saturday in a statement that Teslas actions since it brought a technology theft case against a Xpeng employee are apparently bullying of a young competitor.

In March 2022, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Dr. Cao Guangzhi, who worked for Tesla on its autonomous driving technology Autopilot before joining Xpeng, claiming Cao had stolen trade secrets related to Autopilot while still working at Elon Musks company.

Xpeng said it will leave the judgment on Caos behavior to judges and jury in the U.S., but Teslas ilure to focus on the case per se is disappointing.

Xiaopeng strongly rejected these demands in the Saturday statement, calling them unreasonable. The Chinese carmaker said it had hidden nothing and provided much assistance in this case over the past year, even though it is not a defendant, and so r there is no evidence showing Xpeng has abused trade secrets or had any other inappropriate conduct.

In December 2022, Xpeng further provided information related to Cao that Tesla required.