Photo: Harbinger
When Canoo started manufacturing its vehicles and delivering them to Walmart in August, it seemed that it had relegated several doubts about its viability to the past. Binding orders appeared to confirm that. However, the company does not want to leave the past alone: it is suing former executives and accusing them of stealing its trade secrets.
According to Business Insider, Canoo states that Harbinger, a company founded by these ex-workers, is using its intellectual property. The accused startup will focus on medium-duty vehicles from Class 4 to Class 7, a market segment in which Canoo’s vehicles do not compete. That did not prevent the 58-page lawsuit from being filed.
Canoo named Harbinger’s John Harris (CEO), Phillip Weicker (CTO), Will Eberts (COO), Michael Fielkow (general counsel), and Alexi Charbonneau (vice president of structures and chassis), and several investors in the lawsuit. There are 17 accusations against them, including fraud, breach of confidentiality, breach of employee separation agreement, and a long etcetera.
In the lawsuit, Canoo also accuses Harbinger of poaching its “human capital,” with 33 former employees joining Harbinger and representing 66% of the competitor’s workforce. However, things might be a little more complicated than the document suggests. In January, Business Insider wrote that several employees had resigned from Canoo after Tony Aquila took over the company. The investor became CEO and told Business Insider that employees who did not pursue what he wanted for the company would either be asked to leave or would leave on their own. Many did. Canoo contacted autoevolution to state this is not true.
Canoo was conceived as a company that would not sell a single car. Anyone willing to drive its products would have to subscribe to them, which would be a way to ensure they would last for much longer than regular passenger cars. Riversimple proposed a similar business model and is still pursuing it. According to Business Insider, Aquila decided it was not a good idea and changed all the plans, which may have motivated plenty of people to leave the company – perhaps even the executives Canoo is now trying to sue. Canoo also denies this was the case.
The company’s central allegation against its former executives seems to be that Harbinger is using a “skateboard” to create its vehicles. If that was everything Canoo has against them, it would be an easy case for the defendants: several EV makers adopt skateboards to make developing their products a more affordable task. Any new model only needs a different “hat” (a new body) placed over the standard skateboard, and that’s it.
Without solid evidence that Harbinger copied patented solutions from Canoo, the lawsuit could be easily dismissed. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine Harbinger would expose itself by using anything a court could rule as a patent infringement. Canoo told autoevolution there's way more than that to the story and we have prepared a new article about that based on what the company's lawyers shared with us.
Predictably, Harbinger told Business Insider that it considers Canoo’s lawsuit meritless. It also stated that it would “vigorously defend” itself against Canoo’s “baseless allegations.” As usual, we’ll only have more details when the court judging the case reaches a verdict – or if the companies decide to settle, which would be very unlikely with such serious accusations. When reputations are involved, lawsuits tend to follow the due course.
Canoo named Harbinger’s John Harris (CEO), Phillip Weicker (CTO), Will Eberts (COO), Michael Fielkow (general counsel), and Alexi Charbonneau (vice president of structures and chassis), and several investors in the lawsuit. There are 17 accusations against them, including fraud, breach of confidentiality, breach of employee separation agreement, and a long etcetera.
In the lawsuit, Canoo also accuses Harbinger of poaching its “human capital,” with 33 former employees joining Harbinger and representing 66% of the competitor’s workforce. However, things might be a little more complicated than the document suggests. In January, Business Insider wrote that several employees had resigned from Canoo after Tony Aquila took over the company. The investor became CEO and told Business Insider that employees who did not pursue what he wanted for the company would either be asked to leave or would leave on their own. Many did. Canoo contacted autoevolution to state this is not true.
Canoo was conceived as a company that would not sell a single car. Anyone willing to drive its products would have to subscribe to them, which would be a way to ensure they would last for much longer than regular passenger cars. Riversimple proposed a similar business model and is still pursuing it. According to Business Insider, Aquila decided it was not a good idea and changed all the plans, which may have motivated plenty of people to leave the company – perhaps even the executives Canoo is now trying to sue. Canoo also denies this was the case.
The company’s central allegation against its former executives seems to be that Harbinger is using a “skateboard” to create its vehicles. If that was everything Canoo has against them, it would be an easy case for the defendants: several EV makers adopt skateboards to make developing their products a more affordable task. Any new model only needs a different “hat” (a new body) placed over the standard skateboard, and that’s it.
Without solid evidence that Harbinger copied patented solutions from Canoo, the lawsuit could be easily dismissed. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine Harbinger would expose itself by using anything a court could rule as a patent infringement. Canoo told autoevolution there's way more than that to the story and we have prepared a new article about that based on what the company's lawyers shared with us.
Predictably, Harbinger told Business Insider that it considers Canoo’s lawsuit meritless. It also stated that it would “vigorously defend” itself against Canoo’s “baseless allegations.” As usual, we’ll only have more details when the court judging the case reaches a verdict – or if the companies decide to settle, which would be very unlikely with such serious accusations. When reputations are involved, lawsuits tend to follow the due course.
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