Widely regarded as one of the best— if not the best — hands-free driver-assist system in a still-small market, General Motors’ Super Cruise receives an upgrade this year, allowing drivers to change lanes by simply activating a turn signal.
The first models to gain the feature are the 2021 Cadillac Escalade revealed late Tuesday and Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans for the coming model year. The plan was always to filter Super Cruise through the GM stable, but the timeline was always hazy at best. Via GM President Mark Reuss, we now have a better idea of when semi-autonomous (and semi-autonomous only) driving will reach other models.
Speaking at an investor day event in New York, Reuss said 10 GM models will gain Super Cruise by next year, CNBC reports.
Early last year, Cadillac’s executive chief engineer, Brandon Vivian, told The Verge that the company aimed to reveal a new model with Super Cruise every six months through 2021. At the time, the engineering braintrust was busy at work to make Super Cruise more user-friendly while adding new capabilities like lane changing. Models under other GM brands, the automaker previously stated, would come along after 2021.
That’s still the case, but the numbers have changed somewhat.
By 2023, some 22 GM models will gain Super Cruise, Reuss said. He neglected to rhyme them off by name. The plan was always for Super Cruise to appear in all Cadillac models by the end of 2020; it seems GM, which debuted the system in 2017, was waiting until the enhanced version was ready before outfitting it in all existing vehicles. It had to wait, also, on the introduction of revamped models like the Escalade.
The CT4 and CT5 gained Super Cruise at launch, and will get the upgraded version later this year, along with the Escalade. The XT4, XT5, and XT6 crossovers, however, are in need of the system, and should get it come the 2021 model year (this fall).
Production of Super Cruise’s literal launch vehicle, the CT6 sedan, ceased in February.
Of course, the vehicles mentioned do not add up to 10, and they certainly don’t amount to 22, leaving a big unanswered question. Reuss would only say that the system will find its way into pickups and SUVs.
“We are rolling this out in a very big way,” he said.
[Images: General Motors]
Luxury car drivers use their turn signals? ;)
I keed, I keed!
I still don’t get it.
GM, Audi, BMW, whoever….this seems to be the answer to the question nobody asked.
Complexity…
you didn’t get the memo…?
Tech is the new nicotine. Nobody knows that they want it until they try it and become accustomed to it, then “cant” live without it, then get bored with it, then find new and exciting ways to deliver it. Vehicles are simply a new(ish) delivery method with the natural consequence of complexity.
Cigs -> Me phones
Chaw -> Vehicles
TOM….
Exactly.
Superfluous Complexity.
If you have to be on guard to immediately take control of the vehicle, where is the F ING BENEFIT???
Having borderline Level II autonomy in my car, I can answer that question.
The benefit is less fatigue on long interstate drives because for the 90% of the time you’re in light to moderate traffic cruising at 65 to 80 MPH, the system takes some of the required attention away.
The biggest one for me? Full speed laser cruise control. With “normal” cruise control, I set it to 72 (for example) and drive if the Prius in the left lane is going 64, I have to hit the brakes, initiate a pass, reset the cruise control. Do that once or twice over a couple of hundred miles, meh. Here in the Pacific Northwest, home of the left lane Prius (and even more egregious left lane Honda Odyssey and left lane Subaru Forester), you are continually making these adjustments. It wears you down.
With full speed cruise control, the car slows down invisibly with no intervention on my part. It sets up a safe follow distance (and unlike the Toyota system, you can set the GM system to be almost scary close to the rear bumper in front of you so pulling between is hard). Now one of two things happen, left lane Prius moves and the car speeds up on its own back to my cruise speed, or I reach a point of, “huh, I don’t feel like I’m moving as fast as…oh wait, 63, let me pass this sucker.”
As soon as I change lanes, the full-speed cruise control “detects” the clear lane, accelerates back to cruise speed, I pass and away I go. Again, do this 3 or 4 times in 100 miles, not that tiring. Having to continually do it from Seattle to the CA border, exhausting – frustrating – blood pressure rising.
In my G8 GT, which was certainly not uncomfortable or a chore to drive, after 450 to 600 miles, I was done. Stick a fork in me man – done.
In the newer ride with Level II, 700 to 1000 miles in a day and I get out feeling still able to think.
Fatigue. That’s the difference.
GM’s super-close auto cruise control following distances – is that why my rented XT4’s auto cruise control didn’t feel like it was working? I kept trying to set it, and it kept charging forward toward the hind end of the car ahead of me like it didn’t know the car was there. Scared me into shutting it off each time. I thought maybe I’d missed some setting and didn’t have the radar function engaged, or something.
And may I add: I’m used to using auto cruise control on our Porsche, where it still feels slightly out of control, but at least it doesn’t scare me. Why can’t auto-cruise drive more like a grown-up and less like a teenager? It shouldn’t be that difficult to program.
BTW: the XT4 was very nice to drive. Very nice.
I agree with APaGtth. My car’s radar ACC is impercetible in operation. It used to take me a while after I got it to realize I’d slowed down because the car in front had. But now I know it’s so smooth, I watch out for the slowing down of grandma in front, and just pull into the left lane if safe and let the electronic brain gets on with it.
Surely GM Super Cruise is more than this. I disabled Lane Keeping assist because it went ape when I dodged potholes, of which there are far too many. And worn-out lane markings left it scratching its head. More trouble than it was worth. If Super Cruise can change lanes by itself with a prod of the the turn signal lever, well I guess one would have to have confidence that the Highways Dept maintenance was up to scratch. Highly unlikely around here.
Who are these people who “widely regard the GM Cruise system as the best”? Best at what, exactly? I must have missed that memo.