Hyperdrive
Tesla Escalates Battle Over Alleged Theft of Robocar Secrets
- Carmaker seeks to force China’s Xpeng to disclose source code
- Startup says Tesla is trying to ‘rummage through’ its IP
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More than a year after the billionaire chairman of Xpeng Motors labeled as “questionable” Tesla Inc.’s allegations that an engineer stole Autopilot secrets before bolting to the Chinese startup, the questions from Elon Musk’s company keep coming.
As Tesla tries to amass proof in its lawsuit portraying the engineer as a traitor, it’s asking a judge to force the Guangzhou, China-based maker of Tesla look-alike electric cars to disclose its autonomous-driving source code, turn over images of computer hard drives and even make an employee available for an interview.