A lawsuit filed by Tesla against electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian may proceed. A judge in California's Santa Clara rejects Rivian's request to dismiss the lawsuit. Who is Rivian and why is this company in a legal battle with Tesla?
Anyone thinking of electric cars probably quickly thinks of Tesla. This US manufacturer had an early presence in the electric vehicle market and has grown into a sizeable player. A variety of other players are also active in the market. Many of these are relatively small, although Rivian is an exception. In early 2019, for instance, Amazon invested another $700 million in this startup from the US state of Michigan. Car manufacturer Ford followed two months later with a $500 million investment.
Electric pick-up truck and SUV
Rivian was founded in 2009 and initially focused on producing an all-electric sports car. Over the years, the focus shifted to an electric pick-up truck and SUV. The company kept quiet for years. It was only at the 2018 LA Auto Show that Rivian gained name recognition after presenting its pick-up truck R1T and SUV R1S. The company now has over 2,000 employees, operating in various locations across the US.
The R1T and R1S share many similarities. For instance, both can accelerate from 0 to 60 miles, or almost 100 kilometres per hour, in just three seconds. This is made possible thanks to a four engine incorporated in the wheels of the vehicles. These collectively offer - depending on the configuration - up to 750hp of power. Both offer a range of 400 miles.
Comprehensive deal with Amazon
In addition to this pick-up truck and SUV, Rivian also builds electric vans. Big buyer of these is US-based Amazon. The e-commerce company ordered 100,000 units of the vehicle by the end of 2019. Amazon then spoke of the largest order of electric vehicles ever.
So things seemed to be going Rivian’s way. However, its American rival Tesla took Rivian to court in July. Tesla alleges that Rivian is guilty of intellectual property theft. Tesla claims that former Tesla employees who now work for Rivian have taken trade secrets with them to Rivian. Rivian denies this and argues that Tesla is attempting to stifle competition with its lawsuit. The company therefore asked the court to dismiss the case, but the court has rejected this request.
In its suit, Tesla reports that Rivian employs at least 178 former Tesla employees. In addition, Tesla is filing claims against about seven former employees. All of them, according to Elon Musk's company, were guilty of stealing trade secrets when they transferred to Rivian. The court also considered a request to dismiss these claims, but in this the judge did not go along.
Zoox and Xpeng
Rivian is not the first company to be sued by Tesla. Previously, the American car manufacturer sued, amongst others, the self-driving vehicle start-up Zoox. Tesla alleged that four former Tesla employees stole trade secrets when they moved to Zoox. This legal case was eventually settled by Zoox.
Tesla in 2019 also sued Guangzhi Cao, a former engineer who switched to rival Xpeng. Tesla accused the technician of stealing the source code of its Autopilot functionality.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
