Former Apple engineer jailed for stealing self-driving car secrets

Former Apple hardware engineer Xiaolang Zhang has been sentenced to 120 days in prison and three years of supervised release for stealing information about the company's self-driving vehicle development.

Zhang was arrested in 2018 at San Jose International Airport as he was about to board a flight to China. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his mind in 2022 and admitted to stealing trade secrets. 

In addition to his prison sentence, he must pay $146,984 in restitution, according to a court document obtained by 9to5Mac. Zhang originally faced up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The former Apple employee was a hardware engineer for the company's decade-old autonomous vehicle initiative, Project Titan.

According to Apple's complaint, Zhang transferred a 25-page document containing engineering schematics of a circuit board for the company's self-driving vehicle to his wife's laptop via AirDrop.

He also stole circuit boards and a Linux server from Apple's development labs, as well as a copy of technical manuals describing the company's prototype laptop.

Zhang resigned from Apple after a paternity leave and a trip to China, informing the company that he would be working in China for XPeng Motors.

This reportedly prompted an investigation, as XPeng is also working on autonomous driving technology, which revealed that Zhang was caught on CCTV taking hardware from Apple's labs and transferring files to his wife's computer.

He is expected to surrender himself by June 19, after which he will be transferred to a minimum-security facility as close to his home in San Jose, California.

Apple's self-driving vehicle has been in development for a decade, but it has yet to reach the market.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman recently reported that the company's plans have changed, and it is now developing an EV similar to Tesla's rather than a fully autonomous vehicle.

The long-awaited Apple Car is now expected to debut no earlier than 2028.