A new report said General Motors had developed the best system automatic driving system that allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel for short periods of time.
According to cnbc.com, Consumer Reports tested four of the most popular systems and concluded Cadillac's Super Cruise did the best job of ensuring the vehicle was driven safely while making sure the driver paid attention when taking hands off the steering wheel.
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"Super Cruise has a camera that looks at the driver's eyes and warns them if they look away for too long or fall asleep, and that's a game changer," said Jake Fisher, director of auto testing at Consumer Reports.
"This is definitely a shot across the bow of Tesla which already has Autopilot," Michelle Krebs, analyst for AutoTrader told cnbc.com.
Consumer Reports ranked Autopilot as the second most effective automated driving system, criticising it for not doing enough to keep the driver engaged when the vehicle was in Autopilot mode, cnbc.com reported.
"Autopilot is a strong system, but it doesn't have enough safeguards," said Fisher.
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By GlobalDataConsumer Reports rated Nissan's ProPILOT Assist third and Volvo's Pilot Assist as the least effective of the four it tested.
Nissan told cnbc.com ProPILOT Assist was a "hands-on" driver assist system rather than a "self-driving" feature and Volvo echoed that response.
"Pilot Assist is not an autonomous driving system. It is a driver assistance system designed to keep the driver in the loop at all times with hands on the wheel, eyes on the road and the mind on driving," Johan Larsson, a Volvo spokesman, told cnbc.com.
The systems were evaluated at Consumer Reports' test track and on public and highways. The reviews were based on five criteria: capability and performance, ease of use, if the systems made it clear when it was safe to use, whether they kept the driver engaged, and how they alerted or handled an unresponsive driver.
Consumer Reports was not warning people to avoid using any of the automated driving systems it tested, but it wanted drivers to better understand the limits of the technology, cnbc.com noted.
