(Yicai) March 6 -- After being sued by his former employer Faraday Future Intelligent Electric for alleged infringement of its trade secrets and unfair competition, the founder of China’s Human Horizons Technology dismissed the accusations and said he will file a defamation lawsuit against Jia Yueting, who set up the US carmaker.

Ding Lei, Human Horizons, and HiPhi, its troubled HiPhi electric vehicle marque, have never infringed on the trade secrets and intellectual property rights of Faraday Future or Leshi Internet Information and Technology, an online video company also set up by Jia, Ding said yesterday. HiPhi’s electric vehicle models are developed independently from scratch, he said.

Ding, who is also chairman of Shanghai-based Human Horizons, was previously an executive at Chinese auto giant SAIC Motor and Leshi’s vehicle arm.

Jia smeared Ding, Human Horizons, and HiPhi by using words such as "plagiarize," "steal," "crime," and "shame," Ding said in a statement, noting that they will take him to court for infringing their reputations.

According to documents filed with a court in the Chinese city of Shenzhen yesterday, Faraday Future demands that Human Horizons and Ding immediately halt their infringement of trade secrets related to the California-based firm's flagship car, the FF91, and pay compensation.

Jia said on Weibo yesterday that Faraday Future had filed suit against Ding and Human Horizons for their illegal and criminal behavior in stealing and infringing its intellectual property rights, technical data, and trade secrets after a lengthy investigation and preparation.

Ding founded Human Horizons in August 2017 and is said to have brought a group of core staff members and some materials from his old company, Letv Automobile, where he was chief executive for China and the Asia-Pacific region, Securities Times reported last month. Jia is global chairman of Letv Automobile. 

Jia dismissed Human Horizons as “a disgrace to the industry” last month when the EV startup, which is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, said it was suspending production for six months. Ding expressed his shock and anger at what Jia said.

HiPhi has four electric car models in the market and shipped 5,142 autos between starting deliveries in 2021 and March 11, 2022. That was many more than Faraday Future, which had only delivered 10 cars as of the end of last year, despite the FF91 being nine years in the making.

Editor: Martin Kadiev