DETROIT — General Motors said on Wednesday that owners of certain vehicles equipped with its Super Cruise-assisted driving system can now use it on 400,000 miles (643,740 km) of North American roads, doubling its current operating area as Tesla and other automakers race to use hands-free cruise technology.
GM’s Super Cruise system, like Tesla’s Autopilot system, is a driver assistance system and does not allow for true autonomous driving. Spurred on by Tesla’s aggressive deployment of Autopilot and Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk’s promises of a more advanced “Full Self Driving” system, GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz are racing to deploy competitive partial automation technology in key markets.
At the same time, safety regulators express concern that drivers fail to understand that Autopilot and similar systems are not designed to take over driving in all conditions.
Thanks to the sensors and software of the GM system, a driver can cruise with their hands off the wheel on detailed mapped highways. But the driver is expected to remain alert and ready to take over the car. GM uses technology to monitor the driver, and Super Cruise will sound alarms or slow the car to a stop if it detects a driver not responding.
Beginning later this year, GM plans to allow vehicles equipped with Super Cruise and the company’s latest electronic vehicle system to operate hands-free on major undivided highways in the United States and Canada, as well as additional miles of divided highways. Currently, Super Cruise only operates on interstate, divided highways.
The expansion, powered by wider digital maps, will allow owners of well-equipped GM vehicles to cruise hands-free on stretches of Route 66 and the Pacific Coast Highway in the western U.S. or the Trans-Canada Highway in western Canada. GM said.
Many of the new avenues GM has mapped are in rural, core countries where GM pickups are popular. GM plans to offer Super Cruise as an option on its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra large pickups later this year. GM has previously said it plans to offer Super Cruise as an option on 22 models by the end of 2023.
Depending on the model, Super Cruise costs $2,200 to $2,500 to add as an option.
(Reporting by Joe White in Detroit; editing by Matthew Lewis)
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