Cadillac Escalade IQ to be capable of Level 3 driving from 2028
To date, there is only one approved Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) in the United States that enables so-called ‘eyes-off, hands-off’ driving, i.e. driving where the driver can take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel. This system is called ‘Drive Pilot’ and comes from Mercedes-Benz.
Now General Motors also wants to get involved in this area. The company already offers a driver assistance system called ‘Super Cruise’, but so far, it only masters Level 2. The important difference between Level 2 and Level 3 is that Level 2 basically allows for ‘hands-off’ driving, meaning that the vehicle can steer itself at times. However, the driver must actively monitor the road and the system, regularly touch the steering wheel and be able to intervene immediately if necessary. This means that reading something on your mobile phone or watching videos while driving is still a no-no.
Take control within ten seconds
In contrast, Level 3 allows drivers to take their eyes off the road and write a message or watch a film. However, the driver must be able to intervene after a warning period, which is ten seconds in the case of Mercedes’ Drive Pilot. If the driver does not take control within this time, the vehicle initiates an emergency stop.
So much for the basic understanding – and now to General Motors’ announcement: The car manufacturer wants to launch a driver assistance system for ‘eyes-off’ driving in 2028. It will first be available in the Cadillac Escalade IQ, a massive electric SUV with a length of 5.80 metres, which currently has an electric drive with two motors and a system output of 559 kW. The net energy content of the battery is 205 kW, and the vehicle’s range is 460 miles (745 kilometres).
Robotaxi driving data used to develop the service
General Motors states that it has two important resources at its disposal for the development of the ‘eyes-off’ driving system. Firstly, GM has already mapped 600,000 miles of roads for Super Cruise that can already be used for hands-free driving. Customers have already covered 700 million miles on these roads with Super Cruise. Secondly, GM can also draw on data from five million miles of fully driverless journeys covered as part of the discontinued Cruise robot taxi project.
After investing billions, General Motors abandoned its robot taxi business, which was bundled in the Cruise division, at the end of 2024. Cruise was never able to recover from an accident involving one of its autonomous vehicles and a pedestrian in San Francisco. This summer, however, it was announced that GM wanted to continue using the expertise gained from Cruise to develop automated and autonomous driving functions for regular cars – and the newly announced ‘eyes-off’ function for the Cadillac is the first example of this.
New high-speed computer
General Motors also presented other innovations at its GM Forward event in New York. For example, a new centralised computer platform is to be introduced in 2028, which will also be implemented first in the Cadillac Escalade IQ. The platform is set to fundamentally change the way vehicles are developed, updated and improved over time. The update has been developed for vehicles with all drive systems and combines all key systems, from drive and steering to infotainment and safety, on a single high-speed computing core. This is expected to provide ten times more over-the-air software update capacity, 1,000 times more bandwidth and up to 35 times more AI power for autonomous driving and advanced features.
There are also developments in bidirectional charging and emergency power supply for buildings via electric car batteries. From 2026, General Motors plans to make its GM Energy Home System (bidirectional charging of electric vehicles plus a stationary home battery) available for leasing. The terms and conditions will be announced at a later date. Initially, only available to owners of GM electric vehicles, there will later be a version for other homeowners who are interested in emergency power supply and solar integration.
Furthermore, GM vehicles are to be equipped with conversational AI based on Google Gemini from next year onwards. GM also plans to introduce its own AI developed specifically for vehicles in the future, enabling drivers to interact with the vehicle as they would in a normal conversation.
This article was first published by Florian Treiß for electrive’s German edition
0 Comments