A former Apple employee has pleaded guilty of stealing trade secrets from the U.S. tech giant when he worked at the company from 2015 tp 2018 for a self-driving vehicle project.
After leaving Apple, Xiaolang Zhang then proceeded to work at the Chinese electric vehicle startup Guangzhou Xiaopeng Motors Technology and used the trade secrets in developing ideas and concepts for the Chinese EV maker.
In an internal investigation, Apple found out that Zhang had run off with 24GB of "highly problematic" data to his wife's laptop through AirDrop, and had also stolen circuit boards and a server from the company's autonomous vehicle lab.
Sentencing Date to Be Determined, E-Apple Employee Faces 10 Year Prison Term, Quarter Million Dollars in Fines
Although terms of Zhang's plea agreement was not available, a court document revealed on CNBC showed that Zhang had pled guilty to the single count of trade secrets theft in his indictment before the Northern District Court of California. A conference to determine his sentencing date is set on November 14. In U.S. law, trade secrets theft carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Zhang could also face penalties of up to a quarter-million dollars, CNBC reported.
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Zhang is not the only former Apple employee who has been charged of trade secrets theft from the Apple Car project, and transferring the confidential materials to the Chinese EV maker. In 2019, this ex-Apple employee was charged with trying to sneak out Apple Car manuals, schematics, diagrams, and photographs to China. This particular case is ongoing, CNBC further reported.
That same year, Tesla also charged a former employee for uploading source code related to the automaker's Autopilot system to his iCloud account. The ex-Tesla employee then brought that secret information to Xpeng.
Rough Road for Apple Car
Although several cases of trade secret theft have been filed in recent years, Apple has not made concrete official announcements yet on its a self-driving car. There have been rumors claiming it could be rolled out in 2025, but it is quite apparent that the project had encountered many twists and turns. According to reports, the Apple Car team had to deal with high staff turnover for engineers and executives, technical problems, as well as a lack of support in the project from company's top brass.
It may be considered as Apple's worst kept secret, the "Apple Car" is being rumored to be developed for a release in 2024 or later. The Apple Car is said to be a fully-featured self-driving electric vehicle. In competing with suh automakers as Tesla, Apple may seek alliances with established manufacturers, such as Hyundai or BMW, or seek other options.
Rumors have long claimed that Apple is actively various automotive projects that could lead to what is being termed as the "Apple Car." All the research and design work part of this initiative has been dubbed "Project Titan."
The project falls under two broad categories: self-driving vehicle systems and car design.
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