Cadillac Super Cruise expanding to entire lineup/GM vehicles in 2020, here’s our review [video]

Cadillac announced today that its Super Cruise level 2/3 autonomous driving system will be expanding into its other vehicles and to the wider GM lineup of vehicles in 2020. Cadillac calls it the only truly “hands free” autonomous system though other makers might argue semantics.

Cadillac’s Super Cruise is a Tesla (or Mercedes Drive Pilot, Nissan Propilot, etc) Autopilot-like level 2 software that GM puts in its top end CT-6 only for now. GM gave us a demo CT-6 which we did a quick review of, below.

Mark Reuss, GM executive vice president of Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, announced these plans at the Intelligent Transportation Society’s annual conference in Detroit Wednesday.

“The expansion of Super Cruise and V2X communications technology demonstrates Cadillac’s commitment to innovation, and to making customers’ lives better,” Reuss said. “GM is just as committed to ushering in a new era of personal transportation, and technologies like these will enable it.”

Reuss was last seen demonstrating the perils of human driven driving mistakes…

GM exec crashes Corvette ZR1 Pace car, challenging the saying “no such thing as bad publicity” https://t.co/QSWZLUQiLb

— Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) June 3, 2018

Here’s how GM describes V2X:

Cadillac introduced vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications on the CTS sedan in 2017, which uses Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) technology. Using the Basic Safety Message as a base, V2V can be extended to the roadway infrastructure and other roadway users (e.g., cyclists, pedestrians, etc.) establishing a V2X ecosystem. Using V2X, compatible vehicles can be notified of hazardous road conditions, traffic light statuses, changing work zones and more. With a range of nearly 1,000 feet, drivers can be alerted to possible threats in time to avoid a crash.

Cadillac Super Cruise Review

A note before we start. This CT-6 isn’t the 31 mile of battery hybrid model – those don’t come with Super Cruise for some reason – it is a pure ICE AWD powertrain which I obviously and absolutely dislike. I can’t imagine how much better the experience would be if Caddy dropped 2 Chevy Bolt powertrains into this thing. We hope to drive the Hybrid model at a later date.

I’ve owned a Tesla Model X with Autopilot 2.0 hardware for a little over a year and a Model S without it for 4 years before that.  Until the last Autopilot update, I was underwhelmed and often a little frightened to use it but I’ve either gotten used to its capabilities or the latest update made it good enough to relax with it on.

The Super Cruise is much harder to engage since it only works on Interstates and highways that Cadillac has already mapped, while I can literally activate Tesla’s Autopilot in my driveway.

What is nice however is that Super Cruise doesn’t require the driver to have his or her hands on the wheel and in the case of my Tesla Autopilot having to apply some turn resistance along the way. Super Cruise watches you with an infrared beam that shoots out of the steering wheel. If you block or avert your eyes or the laser for more than a few seconds, the car starts flipping out with loud beeping and significant and unpleasant vibrations from the seat. If you still don’t engage, the car comes to a stop.

I found it fairly difficult to engage Super Cruise and found that it was inconsistent. Over the same stretch of highway with similar light and traffic patterns I was able to engage and use it where the previous time, I wasn’t. Compare this to Tesla which you can engage almost anywhere, even when you probably shouldn’t.

Once engaged however, Super Cruise was as reliable and almost as smooth as Tesla’s Autopilot over the same roads. There is a huge green light in the steering wheel, as you can see in the video above, which was somewhat distracting, but it was also nice not to have to worry about keeping pressure on the steering wheel while driving.

As you might expect, lane keeping assist and departure warnings are also part of the package and worked well, but you can’t yet change lanes by invoking the turn signal like you do in Tesla’s Autopilot.

Overall GM/Cadillac’s Super Cruise is already a win for the automaker and will obviously see improvements over the years as it is rolled out to other Cadillac vehicles and the greater GM fleet.

https://youtu.be/_rxW68ADldI