Tesla and Rivian are settling their battery tech theft lawsuit

Tesla and Rivian have been embroiled in a lawsuit in which the former accused the latter of having stolen battery technology by poaching Tesla employees.

It sounds like the two automakers are finally about to settle the lawsuit, which has been going on for 4 years.

In 2020, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Rivian over allegedly stealing trade secrets by hiring former Tesla employees and encouraging them to bring documents. Rivian has denied the allegations.

When Tesla filed the lawsuit, it wasn’t clear what trade secrets Tesla was claiming Rivian had stolen. However, we noted that the employees listed in the lawsuits were two recruiters, an EHS manager, and a manager of Tesla’s charging networks.

The automaker claimed that these employees brought “documents consisting of highly sensitive trade secret, confidential, and proprietary engineering information” when they went to work for Rivian.

A year later, Tesla expanded the lawsuit, claiming more specifically that Rivian was “stealing the core technology for its next-generation batteries.”

At first, the companies tried to settle out of court, but it didn’t work out, so the lawsuit was moved to court last year.

Over a year later, we now learn that Tesla had notified the court that it expects to file to get the lawsuit dismissed after reaching a conditional agreement with Rivian. The company didn’t disclose the details of the settlement (via Bloomberg):

Tesla didn’t disclose specifics about the agreement in a court filing, but told a California state judge that it expects to seek dismissal of the case by Dec. 24 upon satisfactory completion of the terms.

Neither Tesla nor Rivian have commented on the reported settlement.

While Tesla has claimed that it somewhat open-sourced its patents, we have previously noted that it’s not exactly the case. Tesla claims to let other companies use its patented technology as long as they themselves don’t sue them over patent rights.

And in this specific case, Tesla alleges that Rivian has specifically hired employees to steal technologies. Again, Rivian has denied the allegation.

Electrek’s Take

The terms are unknown, but in similar cases, it often involves things like some level of access to make sure that no proprietary technology is being used or has been used.

The lawsuit is not exactly clear, but based on the timeline and the allegations of “next-gen batteries”, Tesla could have been talking about its 4680 battery cells, although those are cells. It could also be the structural battery pack.

Rivian is expected to use a taller 4695 battery from LG Energy Solutions for its next-generation vehicles.