Hiring former Google star engineer Anthony Levandowski and his team had the potential to save Uber “at least a year” in the race to develop self-driving cars, according to an internal Uber email unsealed in court Thursday in the high-profile lawsuit between the companies. Google’s self-driving car unit, which was renamed Waymo after Levandowski left, argues that Levandowski stole its proprietary design for lidar, a laser-based sensor that allows cars to see the environment around them.