The New York Times is reporting that Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley maker of electric sports cars, filed suit in San Mateo Superior Court on Monday against a competing company and two of its employees, saying they stole some of Tesla's design ideas and trade secrets.

According to the story, the Tesla lawsuit contends that Henrik Fisker, a Danish-born designer, and his chief operating officer, Bernhard Koehler, doing business under the name Fisker Coachbuild, fraudulently agreed to take on Tesla's $875,000 design contract to gain access to confidential design information and trade secrets before announcing a competing vehicle. Tesla claims that Fisker had absolutely no experience with hybrid technology before working for Tesla, did substandard work for the electric car builder to sabotage it, and then used the $875k to develop and launch its own car instead.