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Tesla case against Xpeng Motors over alleged Autopilot code theft faces roadblock
Tesla’s case against Chinese EV maker Xpeng Motors over the alleged theft of its Autopilot source code recently reached an unfortunate roadblock. In a recent update, a federal judge rejected a request from Tesla that would allow the company to access grand jury materials related to a former Apple engineer, who reportedly stole trade secrets before joining the Chinese EV maker.
Back in mid-January, Tesla subpoenaed XMotors, the US business unit of the China based Xpeng Motors. This was seen as a bid to gather evidence in its civil lawsuit against Cao Guangzhi, who previously worked on Tesla’s Autopilot team as an engineer. Guangzhi is accused of misusing Tesla’s intellectual property for the benefit of Xpeng, his new employer.
Tesla requested access to several materials, including the entire repository of Xpeng’s XPilot source code, referring to the Chinese EV maker’s own driver-assist system that is intended to rival Autopilot. The American electric car maker also requested access to clones of hard drives from Xpeng senior executives.
Interestingly enough, Tesla also requested access to court records related to a criminal charge against former Xpeng employee Zhang Xiaolang, who used to work for Apple. Like Cao, the former Apple employee is accused of stealing trade secrets before joining Xpeng. Unfortunately for Zhang, the Chinese EV maker opted to cut ties with him after criminal charges were filed.
It is these requests that were denied by a federal judge on Wednesday. In an announcement, US District Judge Vince Chhabria stated that the relevance of materials related to Zhang and Tesla’s claims against Cao was “speculative and tenuous.” “Discovery of this information is not proportional to the needs of this case at this time, especially given the potential for interference with an ongoing criminal prosecution, a concern raised by the US Attorney,” the US federal judge wrote, as noted in a TechNode report.
Apart from these, Tesla will also not be provided with images of work computers from several key Xpeng executives, including CEO He Xiaopeng and President Brian Gu. This was due to the executives being employed solely by China-based Xpeng Motors, not by the company’s US-based XMotors business unit. Tesla is not coming out of its requests empty handed, however. Xpeng is still required to produce the source code for its XPilot system. The source codes from XPilot and Autopilot are poised to be reviewed by a neutral third party, who will determine if any theft was indeed performed.
Xpeng has been pretty open about the fact that its business is inspired by Tesla, with the company stating that had used the American electric car maker’s patents to develop its vehicles. Its P7 sedan, which was recently revealed, is also poised to be a response to the Model 3, Tesla’s most successful car to date. Unfortunately, some of Xpeng’s actions in the past have suggested that the company’s inspirations from Tesla may go a bit deeper than expected. This is hinted at by the heavily Model S/X inspired interior of its vehicles, and the fact that its website seems to be a direct copy of Tesla’s configurator.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.
🚨 The NHTSA denied a petition from Tesla that would have thrown out concerns regarding its door handles.
NHTSA said Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect warranting an investigation. The agency said a rulemaking process would be a better strategy. pic.twitter.com/j6PzUBM1mT
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.
Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.
Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix
In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.
The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.
It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
