A self-driving car company founded by Google is accusing a former top engineer of stealing pivotal technology that's propelling Uber's effort to assemble a fleet of automated vehicles for its popular ride-hailing service.
The complaint, outlined in a lawsuit filed in a San Francisco federal court by Waymo, alleges Anthony Levandowski, a former manager in Google's self-driving car project, loaded 14,000 confidential files on a laptop before leaving to start his own company in 2016.
Uber subsequently bought Levandowski's start-up, Otto, last year for $US680 million ($A882 million).
Waymo began working on self-driving cars eight years ago as a secret Google project and now now operates as a part of Google's corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.
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