Xpeng Motors said on Wednesday that it has no idea on its employee Zhang Xiaolang, also an ex-Apple engineer's alleged crime of stealing Apple's trade secret before US Federal prosecutors charged him and will actively cooperate with relevant authorities regarding the investigation.

The comment came after the FBI charged Zhang with stealing trade secrets related to Apple's autonomous vehicle program, US tech news site the Verge reported on Wednesday.

"On June 27 we learned that US [federal courts] were launching an investigation into Zhang's conduct and we did not even know of the matter before [that time]," Xpeng, a new-energy vehicle start-up, said in a statement it sent to the Global Times.

The company has then launched an internal investigation on the matter as soon as possible and seized Zhang's computer and office appliances, according to the statement. 

"In the beginning of May when Zhang joined Xpeng, he signed documents in relation to the compliance of intellectual property protection (IPR), and no records show that he had reported any sensitivities or illegal behaviors to the company," the statement added.

The start-up also stressed in the statement that it strictly follows both Chinese and US laws while attaching great importance to IPR.

News website wired.com also reported that Zhang is accused of "transferring more than 40 GB of Apple intellectual property to his wife's laptop" before he left the company. He was arrested while trying to leave the US on July 7, and he now faces 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, the Verge report said.

Xpeng was founded in 2014, and in January, it secured $350 million in its A series of fundraising, led by Alibaba and Foxconn.