General Motors announced this morning that it is doubling the number of roads that its Super Cruise hands-free driver assist technology will operate on across the United States and Canada.
To enable Super Cruise’s hands-free highway operation, the technology relies on precision-surveyed, lidar-scanned road data to operate. GM scans the roads with its survey vehicles and then Super Cruise-equipped vehicles compare the high-definition maps with live data gathered by onboard cameras, radar sensors and GPS to accurately guide the vehicle on the road and within its lane. Designed as a driver assist technology that requires human attention to operate, infrared cameras watch the driver to make sure their eyes are on the road and ready to regain control if conditions change.
With the inclusion of undivided state and federal highways, the Super Cruise network of highways doubles to over 400,000 miles of roads.
General MotorsSince its launch in 2017 onboard the 2018 Cadillac CT6, owners have logged over 34 million miles of hands-free travel while GM has been busy expanding the Super Cruise highway network to around 200,000 miles of divided highways and interstates.
By the end of this year, that number will double to over 400,000 miles of Super Cruise-able roads thanks to the new inclusion of undivided highways to the database of high-resolution maps. These federal and state highways and routes will flesh out the Super Cruise network and connect smaller cities and townships that the mostly interstate-based maps missed. This includes many famous roads such as US Route 66, California’s Pacific Coast Highway 1, the Overseas Highway in Florida, the Trans-Canada Highway and more.
The new broader road network will be available for vehicles built on GM’s Vehicle Intelligence Platform (VIP) electrical architecture running the second-generation of Super Cruise — the update that also introduced automatic lane changes and towing capabilities to the tech — starting later this year, both for new purchases and those currently on the road via a free over-the-air update. For now, that list includes the Cadillac CT5, CT4 and Escalade, the GMC Hummer EV and Sierra and the Chevrolet Silverado
. That list will be joined by the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Lyriq EV in the near future. Vehicles on older architecture running the older version of Super Cruise — like the current Cadillac XT6 — may not get the upgrade, but will continue to operate all the same on divided highways.
Over the next year, General Motors will expand the availability of Super Cruise across its portfolio of brands with plans to eventually offer the technology on 22 models in total by the end of 2023. The automaker has also announced the next-generation Ultra Cruise, which is expected to arrive in 2023, bringing door-to-door hands-free navigation on over 2 million miles of highways, city streets and rural roads.
