Google's Robocar Lawsuit Could Kill Uber's Future and Send Execs to Prison

Uber was having a bad month even before Waymo, Google's self-driving car outfit, filed a bombshell lawsuit accusing the ridesharing giant of swiping gobs of its autonomous driving tech. The lawsuit, which Waymo filed Thursday, alleges former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski secretly downloaded 14,000 proprietary technical files before leaving to found self-driving truck startup Otto. First, it allows plaintiffs to ask the court for an immediate, temporary injunction, giving Waymo the power to shut down Uber’s self-driving truck and car experiments until this is sorted. The good news for Uber is that Waymo hasn’t made a move toward those harrowing legal interventions---well, beyond filing its big lawsuit.