Numerous social media users are accusing GMC of plagiarism and IP theft, The Drive reports pointing out an obvious semblance between an official photo of the electric Rivian R1T and a recently posted sketch of the GMC Sierra EV apparently based on it.
GM Design, which had posted the image, has already deleted it, but not before it caused a heated discussion. As you can easily see yourself, the sketch was drawn by a GM designer right on top of an official photo by its rival car manufacturer, Rivian.
The two images have an identical foreground of autumn leaves swept up by the wind, the same figure of a person in the background, the same wheel and outer mirror shapes and very similar-looking rear pillars. In the end, the cooler white balance aside, the GM sketch looks obviously drawn on top of the original Rivian design.
So, are the accusations on point? Not according to The Drive, and we tend to agree. It is actually a relatively common practice among product designers to base their early sketches on competing products. Such an approach minimizes the effort while allowing a quick visualization of the main idea behind the product. The mistake GMC made was not using the Rivian photo, but posting it online for everyone to see.
GMC has already confirmed the above. A representative of the company said the GM Design channel was supposed to take its readers ‘behind the scenes’ of car design, but inadvertently used an illustration that wasn’t supposed to go public. This is why it was deleted as soon as the error was spotted.