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General Motors Launching another salvo in the self-driving war.
In 2028, the automaker announced today, it will roll out what it calls an “ice-off” driving system in the electric Cadillac Escalade IQ. In practice, this means that a driver will be able to navigate authorized, mapped highways to do whatever they want behind the wheel. Snacks, answer emails, watch their shows, turn around to yell at the kids in the back. Even sleep, maybe—provided they wake up when they reach the exit ramp. (If they don’t, the car will find a safe place to pull over, GM says.)
The new system marks a collaboration between the teams responsible for it General Motors‘ Eight years old Super CruiseAn advanced driver-assistance system that the automaker describes as “hands-free” on some highways today, and CruiseA Robotaxi subsidiary that once competed Waymo Before GM His funds are off In 2024. That could put the Detroit automaker in contention with Toyota and Tesla, among other automakers trying to bring some version of self-driving systems to cars owned by drivers.
Unlike Tesla’s fully self-driving (supervised) system, which Just depends on the camera To make decisions, GM’s new “ice-off” feature will use lidar, radar and cameras. Sterling Anderson, executive vice president of global products and GM’s chief product officer, said this will become apparent when the driver is expected to refocus through a mix of haptic, auditory and visual alerts. (He was a co-founder of the self-driving trucking firm Aurora, and was instrumental in developing Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system.) “If the past few decades have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t expect an inattentive driver to be ready to take over at a moment’s notice. You simply can’t,” he said.
The announcement of the “eyes off” system was one of a suite of AI-related revelations from GM on Wednesday, the latest sign that automakers are poised to compete over what can best fit buzzing technology on wheels. Next year, GM says, its vehicles will come with one Google Gemini Chatbot integration that should be able to help drivers more naturally let their car help them, for example, navigate to a coffee shop near work. At some point in the future, GM says, it will introduce a custom-built AI that can capture drivers’ personal preferences—their favorite driving music, temperature, or mirror position, perhaps—and, for example, alert them when their car needs maintenance. All of this will be enabled by a new centralized computing platform, which will debut in 2028.
