The case concerning Apple's trade secrets has ended. XiaolangZhang pleaded guilty to stealing confidential information from Apple.
In July of last year, a federal grand jury in San Jose indictedZhang for obtaining a 25-page document containing detailed drawings of a circuit board designed to be used in Apple's self-driving car.
He told Apple that he was quitting to be closer to his mother. The former employee went on to work for Xpeng, an electric vehicle upstart in China. The engineer was arrested at the San Jose International Airport on the day he was going to return to China.
Xpeng is no longer involved in the case. In its official post on Tuesday, the publicly traded EV maker said it has nothing to do with the case and has not been involved in the investigation by the U.S. judiciary authorities.
Xpeng is a leading player in advanced driver assistance systems in China.
A former Xpeng staff has been involved in a legal dispute with a tech giant. Musk has made innuendos about his Chinese challenger, as well as accusing his ex-employee of stealing Autopilot's proprietary technology. In 2021. the lawsuit was dropped.
The Western rivals of Xpeng are nervous about where it is going. Xpeng is similar to its foreign competitors in that it has ambitions to drive autonomously. The Guangzhou-based company has been testing its Xpilot ADAS system and wants to mass-produce the solution at an affordable cost.
Different from other companies, Xpeng uses lidars to steer its vehicles. Level 2.5 driving is what the latest version of Xpilot claims to be able to do.
Some of the technology could be made available to overseas consumers. The first stop for Nio's overseas expansion was Norway, where Xpeng began shipping last year. The company plans to enter Sweden and the Netherlands through both official retail stores and third party distribution networks.
EV upstart Xpeng is expanding beyond China
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