Elon Musk during his presentation at the Tesla Powerpack Launch Event at Hornsdale Wind Farm on September 29, 2017 in Adelaide, Australia. Tesla and Apple both suspect they were betrayed by driverless technology engineers who defected to the same Chinese startup.So, Tesla is now asking for Apples help in a lawsuit in which the electric carmaker accused an engineer who worked on its Autopilot program of taking thousands of highly confidential files when he went to work for XMotors.ai, the U.S. research arm of Guangzhou-based Xpeng.Along with typical information demands in the early fact-finding phase of the lawsuit that are spelled out in a court filing last week Tesla wants to see the engineers emails and have a forensic analysis conducted on his electronic devices the company founded by Elon Musk disclosed that it has also served the iPhone maker with a subpoena.The documents Tesla seeks from Apple arent specified in the filing, but the thinking may be that while the Silicon Valley titans are rivals in the ultra-hot self-driving space, they share a common enemy in Xpeng.Last July, prosecutors charged a hardware engineer in Apples autonomous vehicle-development team with downloading proprietary files as he prepared to leave the company and start work for the for Chinese company. The engineer has pleaded not guilty.Apple didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.The former Tesla engineer, Guangzhi Cao, acknowledged in a court filing that he downloaded copies of Teslas Autopilot-related source code to his personal iCloud account, but denies any wrongdoing. Cao has done precisely nothing with Teslas IP, having diligently and earnestly tried to scrub all of Teslas source code from his personal devices and volunteered to provide the company with complete forensic copies of any devices it wished to inspect, his lawyers wrote.Xpeng which hasnt been accused of wrongdoing by Apple or Tesla has said it plays by the rules and has denied having any part in the engineers alleged misconduct. The company has said that when it was notified in June 2018 that U.S. authorities were investigating the Apple engineer, his computer and office equipment were secured and he was denied access to his work and subsequently fired.Xpeng, which is backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Foxconn Technology Group, is among the startups in China striving to reshape the auto industry as the worlds biggest market promotes new-energy vehicles in an effort to clean its air and cut its reliance on oil
Origin: Tesla asks Apple to help nab alleged data thief working for Chinese competitor
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Lowered VW’s owner says speed bumps are ‘discrimination,’ asks town to pay
Christopher Fitzgibbon and his lowered VW PassatMichael Cowhey / SWNS via the Daily Mail An Irishman whose lowered Volkswagen sedan suffered damage driving over his hometown’s speed bumps wants the town to pay for its repair because, he says, the traffic-calming measures are a form of discrimination. Christopher Fitzgibbon, 23, wants his small town of Galbally in Limerick, Ireland to pay for around £2,000 ($3,400) worth of damages done by driving his lowered VW Passat over the speed bumps, according to The Daily Mail. Fitzgibbon modified the car in March of 2016 to sit about four inches above the ground, but he claims the new speed bumps, installed in September of 2018, are six inches high, which means he can’t drive over them. “I feel discriminated against because I’m driving a modified car – it’s lowered, so it’s four inches off the road – and I’m being denied my right to drive on these roads,” he says. It doesn’t matter what speed I’m at either—I could be driving at 5 km/h or 80 km/h and it wouldn’t make a difference. Having to avoid the speed bumps has meant he can’t drive through the town on his commute, which used to be 50 kilometres. He also says he can’t drive into town to visit the post office, the shops or the pub (which you shouldn’t drive to anyway). Now he must use an alternate route that adds more mileage. Limerick City and County Council has responded by disputing Fitzgibbon’s claim regarding the height of the speed bumps; even though he says they are six inches tall, according to the town’s Traffic Calming Policy Document, they are in fact 75 millimetres tall, or less than three
Origin: Lowered VW’s owner says speed bumps are ‘discrimination,’ asks town to pay
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