In response to Tesla's lawsuit last year accusing former Tesla employee and current Xpeng employee Cao Guangzhi of stealing the source code for Tesla's Autopilot system, Xpeng today provided its latest response.
Xpeng says Tesla recently made numerous unreasonable claims against Xpeng, such as providing all autopilot source code to date, following a civil lawsuit filed in March 2019 against its former employee, visual scientist and current Xpeng employee Cao Guangzhi.
For the past year, Xpeng has made no secret of anything and has worked hard to assist in the investigation of the case. But to date, there is no evidence that Xpeng has abused trade secrets or otherwise acted improperly.
In response, Xpeng said that everything Tesla has tried desperately to show in the year-long period since the lawsuit began has unfortunately shown obvious bullying behavior toward a young competitor, rather than an attempt to settle Dr. Cao's legal case on its own merits.
The following is the translated full text of Xpeng's statement:
Recently, after a civil lawsuit was launched in March 2019 against its former employee, visual scientist and current Xpeng employee Cao Guangzhi, Tesla made numerous unreasonable claims against Xpeng, such as providing all autopilot source code to date. For the past year, Xpeng has made no secret of anything and has worked hard to assist in the investigation of the case. But to date, there is no evidence that Xpeng has abused trade secrets or otherwise acted improperly. Accordingly, Xpeng rejects its claim and makes the following solemn statement.
1. Xpeng was not a party to the case. For more than a year, Xpeng not only provided substantial assistance to the case, but also volunteered to provide electronic backups of Cao Guangzhi's work computer; Xpeng even gave Tesla access to the company's source code repository as of March 21, 2019, the date of Cao Guangzhi's indictment by Tesla, for depositions under a court protective order.
2. Xpeng hired a professional third party to conduct a legal forensic investigation on the day it learned of the prosecution of this case. Its forensic investigation, analysis did not indicate that any Tesla source code, trade secrets or protected confidential information was transmitted to the company and its systems. It will be up to the judge and jury in this case to determine whether Tesla's alleged actions against Cao Guangzhi violate U.S. law.
3. Xpeng has always respected and paid attention to the protection of its own and others' intellectual property achievements. As the first new car manufacturer in China, Xpeng has conducted independent and complete closed-loop independent research and development in autopilot, the results of which have been reflected in the XpengG3 and P, and has formed a complete and differentiated autopilot technology system.
Based on the above, Xpeng strongly defends itself against the law and categorically rejects many of Tesla's unreasonable requests, such as its request for full source code.
Everything Tesla has tried desperately to show in the year since the lawsuit was filed shows a regrettable display of apparent bullying of a young competitor, rather than an attempt to settle the legal case against Dr. Cao on its own merits.
We firmly believe that unwarranted accusations will not slow down the independent development of small cars, and Xpeng will continue to actively promote the popularity and evolution of smart vapor cars under the integration of professional and technical talents in multiple fields.
Xpeng
April 25, 2020
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