Yes, because Apple lost their trade secrets by having their factories in China, right?
Since when has Apple relied on trade secrets? They are all about product, branding, image, and experience.
and lawsuits, lots of lawsuits.
Perhaps they actually did lose some manufacturing process secrets, how are we in a position to tell?
Because Apple is notoriously secretive and it still uses China for manufacturing. And because it hasn't brought any litigation against some Chinese for something like this.
So, even if they did lose something, it shouldn't have been much. Which means "making Tesla there == there go your trade secrets" is not necessarily correct.
OEM/ODM contract manufacturers do most of the heavy lifting of figuring how to make things cheap. Most of the time they cut corners creatively and save everyone money and it works out, but sometimes the low-volume shops go too far and break functionality.
" If we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book" - Elon Musk
He's talking about SpaceX there because the enforce-ability of patents against governments is questionable - Tesla actually files a lot of patents.
Hah. Electric cars have been a thing in China for awhile. Look up BYD... They develop batteries for electric cars too....