A billion miles in less than a decade: GM’s Super Cruise reaches its peak

When Super Cruise started in the Cadillac CT6 in 2017showed that there is a reliable way to provide drivers with hands-free assistance. Unlike TeslaGeneral Motors set up the system to only work on unpaved roads that have been scanned and recorded with HD in advance. Additionally, it added an infrared driver-facing camera to monitor their gaze and ensure their eyes stay on the road ahead to keep the system active.

After the introduction of the Cadillac flagship sedan, GM began to add Super Cruise to many of its models, and this system has passed a billion kilometers (1.6 billion) across approximately 750,000 vehicles in the US and Canada. “And we’re continuing to grow, with new products and we have a lot of renewal interest,” said Rashed Haq, GM’s vice president of independent vehicles.

This upgrade is close to 40 percent for GM owners who own the Super Cruise, according to Haq, which is free for the first three years it is then tied to the OnStar subscription. “It really shows how Super Cruise passes what I call the toothbrush test. Customers are using it continuously. Once they use it, they don’t go back. They continue to use it, and then they use it several times a day, like a toothbrush. So it really passed that kind of test,” Haq told me.

Mapped roads have come a long way since the early days. When I tried the first method in the CT6 in 2018, it covered 160,000 miles (258,000 km); now you can use Super Cruise on nearly 700,000 highway miles (1.1 million kilometers). According to GM figures, it’s used about 17 miles (27 km) and 24 minutes per trip, with more than half of drivers with Super Cruise using it weekly or daily, the automaker says.