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Tesla Claims Former Exec Stole Autopilot Secrets

Tesla Motors Inc. has filed a lawsuit claiming that former executives that left the company to join a startup used secret information about the carmaker’s Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system, Bloomberg News reports.
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Tesla Motors Inc. has filed a lawsuit claiming that former executives that left the company to join a startup used secret information about the carmaker’s Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system, Bloomberg News reports.

The Autopilot system enables Tesla’s electric cars to drive themselves under certain circumstance.

The complaint targets Sterling Anderson, formerly program manager for Tesla’s Autopilot technology; Chris Urmson, who quit as the director of Google’s self-driving car project last summer; and the Aurora Innovation LLC startup they launched late last year in Mountain View, Calif.

Tesla claims Anderson copied proprietary technical files about the Autopilot system, shared them with Urmson and doctored computer record to hide the theft. The suit also complains that Anderson tried to lure Tesla engineers to the startup in violation of a non-solicit stipulation in his contract.

Aurora describes Tesla’s lawsuit as meritless and scoffs that the complaint displays “a startling paranoia and unhealthy fear of competition.”

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