Apple army works on driverless cars

APPLE is employing 5,000 people to develop driverless cars. The iPhone maker was known to be developing driverless cars but the scale of the operation was unclear.

The revelations come in court documents that allege former engineer Xiaolang Zhang stole blueprints from the tech giant.

Zhang was claimed to have spied for a Chinese self-driving car firm before trying to flee with stolen designs. He was arrested on Saturday in San Jose Airport, California.

The complaint, filed with a Californian district court, said Zhang, who now works for Chinabased Xiaopeng Motors’ US subsidiary, was one of 5,000 Apple employees working on its driverless cars, and among 2,700 given access to a top-secret database.

After Zhang left Apple, the company reportedly discovered he had trawled its databases, visited his workplace when he was supposed to be on leave and took technology away with him. He was interviewed by FBI agents on June 27.