jimmyb

I'm not making myself clear...
I KNOW that employees can and do get fired for releasing secrets. My point is/was that I also believe that there are controlled "leaks" (or whatever you want to call them).

elegant

You do not release CAD mechanical drawings for your competitors to see over a year before you reveal your massively changed product.

Telepierre

^^^^^^^^^^

this is it!

NoOne

No, absolutely not.

I spent 20 years at the OEM's, in engineering, including GM.

You like to think its true, but its not.

Here is a perfect example. The C5 had a first on the market design element in the suspension that when discovered earlier than it should have been a competitor used it to make a design direction change to a completely unrelated vehicle and gained an advantage in the market over all the other competitors by being first to market in another segment.

This not does happen intentionally. Put the tin foil hats away.

senah

ok, zerv comes in, registers as a noobe, posts 3 posts showing a lot of details about the m/e, raises a shtstorm, gets gm lawyer stuff going, responds by posting ANOTHER post containing secret gm stuff. this guy/gal is immune from lawsuits? or thrives on trouble? or, this is free advertising for gm.

he/she has to register to post on here, so unless he/she is in russia or some such other fairly secure from lawsuit place, he/she can be accessed. what do you bet we will never hear word one about any suits being filed?

ok Mary, thanks for the info combined with fun entertainment! America is great, and thanks for all the hard work put in by gm management, professionals, workers, et al that make it possible! i love the fun drama, and i especially love a lot of gm products, especially this first true 21st century corvette. i'll be 80 in 2018, and am looking for employment so i can afford the payments on the new m/e.

in 1961 i had owned a classy looking black gm 2dr hdtp with lots of chrome for 2 years that was costing me 100 dollars a month for upkeep (it wasn't a chev, pontiac, oldsmobile or buick!), in addition to my 100 dollar/month car payment. it was a losing battle, so after it ended up with a cracked piston and scored block, i traded it for a 58 impala convertible. i owned it for 2 years and during that time, i replaced a generator bearing ($7), and fuel pump ($5). that was my total expenditure for over 2 years of non routine maintenance! i have been a gm fan ever since with the bulk of my purchases being chevrolets. thanks gm!

jimmyb

I'm curious as to what this "design element" could be in the C5 and what vehicle beat it to market.
With all respect, you say put the tin foil hats away and then don't give specifics about something that happened 3 generations ago.

LT1 Z51

If the person is NOT an employee of GM the ramifications to them are not very high. Worst case is they get banned from GM facilities, the supplier or contractor who works with GM would then need to determine if they should fire the person. They sometimes do, sometimes don't. This case they probably would.

Legally GM would go after the company the person worked for, not the individual. The individual is mostly shielded from any sort of liability. The only "punishment" you get is basically being blackballed in the industry and never getting a job in automotive again.

DanSavage

The discussion about whether the leaks are GM-authorized (any any level) is getting a little tiresome.

Can we just let it go and talk about what we're seeing in the images?

torquetube

You argued repeatedly that the leaks couldn't be leaks because no one would risk their job to leak these to anyone. If you know that employees "can and do get fired for releasing secrets" then you agree people actually do risk their jobs in this way, as baffling as it may seem. And in this case the leaker might not even have been an employee.

These leaks make GM look bad. They reflect poorly on their information security and/or the security of their supply chain. They cannot be making it an easier place to work. What they reveal is not that interesting to anybody other than the competition and a handful of internet geeks. If GM wanted to generate sales buzz they could release teasers themselves and get ten times the coverage.

Zymurgy

This thread has been created for us to argue/discuss the "leak" of CAD Drawings in this thread: Code name Zerv. This debate from that thread will be moved to this new thread so that the original thread can be focused on what the CAD drawings actually reveal.

jimmyb

I didn't "argue" anything. I asked a simple question: "Why would anyone risk their job to release stuff to all of us?" And what I got was "disgruntled employees, "hacked", etc.
LT1 Z51 has the best answer...supplier did it.
I'll bow out of this, if you guys say that it wasn't done intentionally, then I will take that as gospel.

elegant

Maybe a supplier did it; maybe a GM employee did? We factually know that GM has fired at least two employees for Corvette leaks since 2011. Whether this time is was a supplier, or a GM employee is not yet know. Or as Zymurgy earlier posted, perhaps an external hacker?

We do know that GM is not happy (understatement) about these leaks of their internal CAD drawings.

torquetube

With all due respect, you didn't. You declared unequivocally that no one would leak this information. To wit:

Anyway, if we don't know anything about who did it, we cannot know why they did it. I think it's very unlikely this was done with authorization, but I'm not going to pretend to know things I don't. I wish everyone else would do the same.

jimmyb

Sorry, I was too demonstrative.
I never claimed to KNOW, it was my opinion, backed up by ZERO facts but an inquisitive mind as to how this kind of stuff seems to happen fairly often. I think (!) the ME is going to be shown at Detroit in January 2019. Thirteen months away and yet we have front/rear fascias at Bowling Green, these CAD drawings....

Anyhow, the guys that KNOW say intentional leaks DON'T happen so I will take them at their word.

LT1 Z51

GM Employees have more to lose, although there are some who think they won't get caught. So it's possible.

But there is a reason why GM has more leaks than any other OEM. It's about access. I was a supplier resident at Chrysler (in 2007 and 2008), a supplier resident at GM (2010-2012) and now I work at Ford (since 2013).

I can tell you, that GM has the least kept secrets. For a few reasons:

1. Supplier residents actually "release" parts in the GM system E2, this means they need to be aware of all the RPOs and Platform ID's (the 5 digit codes you see on the sales site, like 1YY07 for the Stingray). Since some parts are highly cross platform, you find out about a new platform as soon as its created in the system. You can also cross reference RPOs versus the 5 digit ID to find out which engines, transmissions, etc are on every model. Chrysler and Ford release their own parts and keep these things secret from the supplier. At Chrysler I had knowledge of some salescodes (their equivalent to RPO) but not to the depth of GM. At Ford, I don't even know what our MFAL codes (our version of RPOs) mean (because I don't actually release parts as part of my job) let alone what MFAL codes are on what cars!

2. GM and Chrysler both rely heavily on supplier residents. All GM residents get a GM PC (in addition to their supplier supplied PC). Some people at Chrysler get a PC. Ford rarely has on site residents, and if they do they almost never have PCs. When I was at Chrysler and GM I had E-mail addresses for each, as well as the supplier I worked at. Ford residents typically don't get Ford e-mails.

3. GM gives too much access to employees about future product. Loose lips sink ships, and in the halls at GM everyone knows the product that is coming out in the next 5 years. Timing to the month may not be openly discussed, but Model Year timing is relatively easy to find out. Chrysler is slightly better here, and at Ford this is literally on lock down. Most people are not aware of what is going on outside of their program or commodity.

I could go on, but I think you can paint a picture of the environment at each company.

These shots look to be taken with a camera "over the shoulder" of the person working. So the person who leaked them might not even have direct access, but was shown these by someone who does.

As to why they leak them to the public, I can answer that. To settle "pissing contents." Engineers like to talk to each other, and some like to prove they know the most insider info, and one way to do that is to actually leak stuff.

jimmyb

^^^^^

Thanks!!!!
Your post answers a lot of questions.

-vet

One consideration for this being considered an inside GM job is the breadth of material being shown. Typically a supplier has material related to their parts contribution towards the total build. A supplier can't typically pull up the whole car to view. Rather it is specific bits. The images have shown areas from the front to the back but in a rather selective way. The cooling systems is one area that has not been exposed.

LT1 Z51

If I had to gamble I'd say the person showing the CAD is a GM person, but the pictures are on a supplier phone.

GM's phone policy requires a sticker to be placed on a device. However until recently they didn't pay attention if they were stickering a case versus the actual phone.

So for example you would get the sticker put on your case and then just remove the case to snap photos.

I think they changed this policy, but there are plenty of people running around with stickers on cases.

thegame

so they are either fake or real.... makes sense

fyreline

At the end of the day, does it really make any difference where the images came from? I think most of us agree that they are genuine, so let's just enjoy them for what they are, speculate on what they actually show and what they mean, and wait for the actual car to verify our theories.