Ready, set, Super Cruise.
That’s the hands-free driver assistance feature on the Cadillac CT6 SUV. Starting in 2020, all Cadillacs will have Super Cruise, the Tesla Autopilot competitor, available to deploy for Level 3 autonomous driving on highways.
Eventually, after the 2020 rollout across the Cadillac lineup, Super Cruise will also be an option for other General Motors vehicles. On 130,000 miles of freeways in the U.S. and Canada, the LIDAR-enabled tech allows drivers to let go of the wheel while the car drives.
Unlike Tesla’s Autopilot — the electric car company’s semi-autonomous feature that can brake and switch lanes for you — Super Cruise allows drivers to go hands-free. On Autopilot, you’re supposed to keep your hands on the wheel. With Super Cruise you have to pay attention, but not with your hands. (Even with Super Cruise, though, you can’t totally kick back and take out your phone or open up your laptop.)
It’s one of the first consumer uses of higher-level autonomy, and it will soon be available in way more vehicles. Maybe that suffering perception of self-driving cars will improve as more people have access to and experience the partial autonomy.
In 2023, Cadillac is going deeper into connected vehicles with vehicle-to-everything, or V2X, in Cadillacs. This moves beyond vehicle-to-vehicle communication to give drivers warnings about road conditions, traffic lights, work zones, and more — up to 1,000 feet ahead. Just this week, Qualcomm, Ford, and Panasonic announced the V2X car communication tool is coming to Colorado roads for the first time in the U.S.
Cadillac is connected.
