Musk’s SolarCity Sued for Intellectual Property Theft

Elon Musk’s SolarCity has been accused of intellectual property theft by Cogenra Solar and Khosla Ventures.

In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Monday, the parties accused SolarCity of gaining undue advantage of Cogenra’s Shingling technology that helps in manufacturing high-efficiency commercially viable solar panels.

SolarCity and its subsidiary Silevo misappropriated Cogenra’s trade secrets, manufacturing processes, and other intellectual property to give themselves a competitive advantage and head start in developing shingled-cell solar modules, Cogenra said in the lawsuit.

SolarCity accused of misappropriating solar company Cogenra’s trade secrets

Solar company Cogenra is suing Elon Musk’s SolarCity over the use of shingling technology the company alleges SolarCity took from Cogenra and used to create a world-record breaking solar panel.

Cogenra says it shared its “most precious and confidential trade secrets, manufacturing processes, and other intellectual property with Silevo and SolarCity” between 2010 and 2014.

Silevo is a subsidiary of SolarCity and the complaint alleges these trade secrets gave SolarCity a leg up in manufacturing its own solar cells.

“It was only by misappropriating Cogenra’s proprietary technology, including its trade secrets and other intellectual property, that SolarCity and Silevo were later able to announce a claim that they set a new world record for solar panel energy efficiency,” Cogenra said in the suit.

The complaint also says Cogenra began shopping itself around to bigger solar companies in 2014 and, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg, one of those companies considered a potential buyer was SolarCity. The possible acquisition allegedly gave SolarCity access to classified information.

However, SolarCity calls the lawsuit “meritless” and says the whole thing began after it alerted SunPower to an ex-SolarCity employee who had unlawfully downloaded confidential information from the company and recently joined SunPower, Cogenra’s parent company, as a senior sales manager.

“Instead of taking responsibility and ensuring the return of our misappropriated trade secrets, SunPower subsidiary Cogenra raced to court to divert attention from its conduct by filing a meritless lawsuit,” SolarCity told TechCrunch. “Cogenra’s complaint fails to identify any actual trade secret that Cogenra owns, much less that SolarCity supposedly misappropriated. We are confident the court ultimately will reject Cogenra’s claims, which are factually and legally baseless.”

Tesla Is Grossly Overvaluing SolarCity

More than three months after Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) announced its intention to acquire SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY), CEO Elon Musk hasn’t answered the single most important question for investors yet, which is what return they should expect from such an investment.

When analyst Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer & Co. asked for “some sort of scope of return on capital” on the conference call after the acquisition announcement, Mr. Musk acknowledged the relevance of the question, saying “we will certainly have all that done for you, but the reason it’s not just all in a neat package is because this is a sort of an odd case where we have to tell you at the start of the process, before we have all the answers.”

Three months later Mr. Musk is running behind on his promise. The S-4 that has since been published, hasn’t been helpful either. It heavily relies on the dubious metrics that SolarCity has been using for years without presenting a new and serious look at what the business is actually worth.

Analysts and media seem a bit shy too to delve into the numbers. Those who are in favor of the deal generally stick to explanations like “If you don’t believe in Elon, why are you buying these stocks in the first place?” - an insight presented by equity analyst David Whiston (link).

As some of the Tesla bulls repeatedly say, it is easy to criticize Mr. Musk from the sidelines, while he is working hard to build his business empire. So let’s take a positive attitude here and offer some help. While Mr. Musk is engineering the first rocket which performance bar is larger than the vehicle itself - you can’t make this stuff up, can you - we’ll delve into SolarCity’s numbers to work out an actual fair value for the company.

This is a Tesla Model S hearse, ironic

As grim as it sounds, as a general rule, your last ever drive is the one to your funeral. That’s quite a daunting prospect for us petrolheads – mainly because we won’t be behind the wheel, but also because the hearse options most undertakers have the keys to is pretty uninspiring.

They can range from Ssangyong Turismos capable of swallowing four coffins in one, to pimped-out Rolls-Royce Phantoms.

But now Dutch company RemetzCars has added a hint of the 21st century to the hearse game by making a fittingly silent, fully-electric Tesla Model S hearse.

It’s the first of its kind and offers an insight of how we’ll get delivered to the big hole in the ground once we’ve sucked all the petrol out of our poor planet.

To make it happen, a base Model S was sourced and then stripped of its battery pack. Then, the angle grinders were fired up and the body was cut in half. An extra 80 cm was added in the middle and then fused back together.

Once the batteries were fitted back into the floor, the whole hearse measured out at nearly 19 feet. The rear seats were binned in favour of wood decking to slide a coffin in and out with ease, as well as a separation wall and manually retractable floor. There’s also a newly sculpted glass roofline that follows the traditional Model S line for aero efficiency. Because that kind of thing matters when you’re, um, not living.

We’re told the Tesla hearse has a range of 217 miles. However, we’re not sure if it’s fitted with Ludicrous Mode. If it was our funeral, we sure hope so.

Why the market is freaking out about Tesla

Tesla hasn’t historically been bad at capital discipline; over the course of a year, it has a fraction of what a GM or Ford or Toyota might spend in a quarter, so it has to watch every penny. But CEO Elon Musk and his team are now in triple-secret double-down mode — I know that doesn’t make any sense, but Tesla future investment requirement are almost comically ambitious — and from the perspective of leadership, it would be dumb to let the stock slip before heading back to the markets to raise money. Musk wants to produce 500,000 vehicles annually by 2018, and getting there ain’t gonna be cheap.

The bottom line is that Tesla sees its stock price as a means to an end. The company’s own investment thesis, such as it is, asks investors to take a long-term view: Tesla will be a major player in the future of transportation. Whatever happens with the stock price day-to-day is a distraction. All that matters is that Tesla shares be considered valuable when it’s time to create a new cash pile.

Tesla is right on the edge of crossing a river when it comes to how it spends money. As it gets bigger and has to manage more lines of business, capital efficiency will become vastly more important. But for now, Tesla’s capital exists to be spent, and that’s clearly freaking out the analysts who cover the company.

German Government Report Critical of Tesla Autopilot

Der Spiegel says the Transport Ministry called the feature a “considerable traffic hazard.”

The Autopilot function on Tesla’s Model S car represents a “considerable traffic hazard,” according to an internal report for Germany’s Transport Ministry seen by magazineDer Spiegel.

Experts in the Federal Highway Research Institute carried out tests on the electric car and criticized it on a number of points, the magazine reported on Friday.

For example, drivers are not alerted by the Autopilot system when the vehicle gets into a situation that the computer cannot solve, Spiegel cited the report as saying.

In addition, the car’s sensors do not detect far back enough during an overtaking maneuver, while the emergency brake also performs inadequately, according to the report.

Spiegel said Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt was aware of the report but did not want to take the model out of service.

The ministry told Reuters a final evaluation had not yet been taken and further tests were being conducted.

Tesla stock had a rough week

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is probably trying to figure out what he has do to get on Wall Street’s good side.

After Tesla reported an impressive third-quarter for vehicle deliveries — 24,500 vehicles, with another 5,500 in transit — on Sunday, shares moved higher.

At one point, $215 was in sight.

But by Friday’s market close, the stock had dived around 9% from earlier trading-day peaks, finishing up at $196.61.

The slide was intensified when Goldman Sachs downgraded Tesla and dropped its target price to $185 from $240.

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