The “”they will, won’t they ‘the movie of the apple car’ took another interesting turn this week when it was discovered that an engineer was working on the secret project to steal trade secrets from the iPhone maker.
According to The VergeXiaolang Zhang pledged to take trade secrets from Apple when he left the company in 2018. Zhang previously worked on a self-driving car project with Apple, before leaving the California-based company to work. give Chinese electric vehicle startup Guangzhou Xiaopeng Motors Technology, also known as XPeng.
After Zhang left Applethe company found that he had “transferred about 24GB of ‘very problematic’ data to his wife’s laptop via AirDrop.” Zhang is also said to have obtained the circuit board and a server from the lab. Apple’s self-driving car.The Verge reports:
“The terms of Zhang’s plea agreement are not publicly available, but according to a court document uploaded by CNBC (pdf), Zhang pleaded guilty to the trade secret theft charges listed in the statement. his indictment.
“A conference to determine his sentence is scheduled for Nov. 14. Under US law, trade secret theft comes with a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, and CNBC reported that Zhang could face fines of up to a quarter of a million dollars.”
The interesting thing about this case is that it the only real confirmation we have from Apple that it is in fact working on a self-driving car.
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Sure, California’s license indicates that the company is experimenting Its technology is on the rise and rumors swirl about who can build Apple’s cars, but the iPhone maker itself has remained tight-lipped about any future products.
This is the second time Apple has been forced to show off its car-making hand in this way. In 2019, another engineer was found to have stolen details about project to XPeng.
According to The Verge, Jizhong Chen was accused of attempting to smuggle details such as manuals, diagrams, diagrams and photos out of Apple’s lab.
