SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Tesla Motors Inc., a Silicon Valley company that makes electric cars, has filed suit against a competing company and its founders, alleging they stole trade secrets to design a competing vehicle.
San Carlos-based Tesla recently started shipping its first vehicle, a two-door electric sports car called the Tesla Roadster, which has generated excitement among environmentalists and auto enthusiasts.
Last year, the company hired Fisker Coachbuild LLC, a well-known automotive design firm founded by Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler, to help design the body and interior of Tesla's next vehicle, known as project White Star, a four-door sports sedan with a hybrid-electric engine.
In the lawsuit filed Monday in San Mateo County Superior Court, Tesla claims that Fisker and Koehler fraudulently accepted the design contract to gain access to Tesla's trade secrets and proprietary engineering and design information so they could develop their own hybrid sports sedan.
In a statement Tuesday, Fisker said, ''We believe that the allegations set forth in the complaint are without merit and intend to defend ourselves vigorously.''
Tesla paid Fisker Coachbuild about $800,000 for its design services last year, but Tesla officials said the styling work was ''substandard'' and decided last fall not to use it, according to the lawsuit.
Then Fisker Automotive Inc., an Irvine-based company founded by Fisker and Koehler, announced in January that it was developing a luxury hybrid sports sedan called the Fisker Karma, which Tesla claims has similar specifications to White Star.
Tesla claims the defendants concealed the fact that they were working on a competing vehicle while working on the design contract, said Adam Belsky, an attorney for Tesla.
Fisker ''was privvy to a lot of highly confidential information that obviously he would never have been exposed to if Tesla knew he was a competitor,'' Belsky said. ''Tesla believes in competition as long as it's fair and ethical, but what Fisker did is not fair and not ethical.''
The lawsuit against Fisker, Koehler, Fisker Coachbuild and Fisker Automotive seeks punitive damages and an injunction to bar the defendants from using Tesla trade secrets and proprietary information to develop a competing vehicle.
