Ex-Tesla Contractor Sentenced for Selling Stolen EV Battery Tech

Klaus Pflugbeil receives a two-year prison sentence for conspiring to sell Tesla trade secrets, while his co-conspirator remains at large in China.

Klaus Pflugbeil, a German-Canadian resident of China, was sentenced to 24 months in U.S. federal prison after pleading guilty to stealing Tesla's battery manufacturing trade secrets.
Pflugbeil and his co-conspirator, Yilong Shao, used proprietary Tesla technology to establish a competing business producing EV battery equipment in China, Canada, Germany, and Brazil.
The stolen trade secrets included precision dispensing pumps and continuous motion battery assembly technology acquired by Tesla in its 2019 purchase of Hibar Systems, a Canadian company.
Undercover federal agents posing as buyers uncovered the scheme in 2023, after Pflugbeil sent them a $15 million proposal containing Tesla's intellectual property.
Shao remains at large in China, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S., while prosecutors emphasize the national security risks posed by the theft of critical EV technology.