Xiaolang Zhang, the former Apple employee who pleaded guilty to stealing information about the company's autonomous vehicle development, has been sentenced to 120 days in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Zhang was arrested in 2018 at San Jose International Airport just as he was about to board a flight to China. He initially pleaded not guilty until he changed his mind in 2022 and admitted to stealing trade secrets. In addition to serving time behind bars, he also must pay restitution worth $146,984, according to his sentencing court document first seen by 9to5Mac. Zhang originally faced up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The former Apple employee worked as a hardware engineer for the company's decade-old autonomous vehicle initiative, codenamed Project Titan. Based on Apple's complaint, Zhang transferred a 25-page document containing engineering schematics of a circuit board for the company's autonomous vehicle to his wife's laptop via AirDrop. He also kept a copy of technical manuals describing Apple's prototype for that laptop, in addition to stealing circuit boards and a Linux server from the company's development labs.
Zhang resigned from Apple after paternity leave and a trip to China, telling the iPhone maker that he was going to work in the country for XPeng Motors. This reportedly sparked 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 on June 19, after which he will be sent to a minimum security facility as close as possible to his home in San Jose, California.
Apple's autonomous vehicle has been in the works for a decade, but it has yet to release a product that consumers can buy. Bloomberg Mark Gurman recently reported that the company changed its plans and is now developing a Tesla-like electric vehicle instead of a full autonomous vehicle. The long-awaited Apple Car is now projected to debut no earlier than 2028.
