Former Apple Car Team Member Accused Of Corporate Espionage

The Apple Car may be the worst kept secret at the Cupertino based stable but now it has been revealed that a Chinese engineer working at Apple on the project has pleaded guilty for stealing trade secrets with regards to the project. The employee Xiaolang Zhang was one of two former Apple employees who have been accused of stealing confidential information and taking them to Chinese electric car maker XPeng.

Zhang first pleaded not guilty but now has entered in a plea agreement with the prosecutors. Zhang reportedly downloaded confidential information from Apple which was related to the circuit board for the potential Apple Car self driving programme. He did this after accepting a position in XPeng in which he was taking up a role related to autonomous cars.

After downloading the information, Zhang booked a flight back to China but in the US he was arrested at the San Jose airport after passing through a security check. All this happened in 2018 when he left Apple to join XPeng.

XPeng for its part has posted on Chinese social media that it had no involvement in the case -- and it wasn’t in dispute with either Apple or nor did it have any connections with Zhang.

Zhang will now be sentenced in November 2022. Another Chinese engineer, Jizhong Chen was also charged with a similar crime but has also pleaded not guilty but Chen will go to court for his hearing on Monday next week.