Google's parent company accuses Uber of using stolen Lidar tech to speed up its self-driving car development

The race to bring self-driving cars to the road got uglier this week as the self-driving car company owned by Google parent Alphabet accused Uber of using stolen technology to speed up its autonomous car development. Waymo filed a lawsuit against Uber on Thursday accusing the ride-hailing company of stealing its trade secrets. "Competition in the self-driving space is a good thing; it pushes everyone to develop better, safer and more affordable technology. But we believe that competition should be fueled by innovation in the labs and on the roads, not through unlawful actions," the Waymo team said in a Medium post announcing the suit, which names both Uber and Otto, a startup owned by the ride-hailing company, as defendants. The lawsuit argues that former Waymo manager Anthony Levandowski took information when he left the company to co-found a venture that became Otto.