When you are the best on the market, people will start stealing your ideas, and this happens with Tesla.
The best electric vehicle company in the world, Tesla, is suing their fellow EV manufacturer Rivian.
According to Tesla officials, four former employees who went to work for Rivian, took secret information when they changed the companies.
Also, there is a suspicion of two more ex-Tesla employees who could give away sensitive information to Rivian.
Tesla’s complaint to the court says, “One would engage in that behavior only for an important benefit — to use it to serve the competitive interests of a new employer.”
To make things more awkward, Rivian recently reported a $2,5 billion investment.
Thanks to the extensive list of investors that Rivian relies on, the manager T. Rowe Price got investments from Ford Motor Company, Cox Automotive, and Amazon.
Rivian, however, denies any possibility of obtaining Tesla secret information from the new employees.
According to their company, new employees need to confirm “that they have not, and will not, introduce former employers’ intellectual property into Rivian systems.”
Rivian is now working on the release of its first all-electric vehicle, preparing the production for 2021. The R1T pickup will be Rivian’s all-electric pioneer, and the time of its release raises even more doubts.
The company says that its improvements are coming from the hard work of thousands of professionals. “Rivian is made up of high-performing, mission-driven teams and our business model and technology are based on many years of engineering, design, and strategy development,” the company’s CEO, R.J. Scaringe claims.
The lawsuit is similar to the one that Tesla filed against Xpeng Motors from China, claiming that a former employee has stolen Tesla’s Autopilot source code.
The ex-employee, Guangzhi Cao, downloaded the Autopilot source code to his personal computer while working for Tesla.
However, in court, he said that he deleted the file before joining the Xpeng Motors team. The case is not closed yet.
Whether these accusations are true, and if Tesla’s confidential information was given to the competitors by Tesla’s ex-employees, we will see when the cases are closed. Both of the companies deny the use of any Tesla information for their new vehicles.
Whether their sudden technology advance is a pure coincidence or not, we will find out after the experts examine the cases.
Rivian is a company that admires the success of Tesla, which doesn’t mean they wouldn’t use some sensitive information.
The case is under the jurisdiction of California’s Superior Court in Santa Clara County, under the case number 20CV368472.
