General Motors’ US flagship brand Cadillac will begin offering advanced “intelligent and connected” vehicle technologies on some 2017 model year vehicles, the automaker’s CEO Mary Barra said at the weekend in a keynote address to the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) World Congress in Detroit.
In about two years, a redesigned 2017 Cadillac will have driver assist technology called Super Cruise while the 2017 CTS will gain vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communications.
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“A tide of innovation has invigorated the global auto industry and we are taking these giant leaps forward to remain a leader of new technology,” Barra said. “We are not doing this for the sake of the technology itself. We’re doing it because it’s what customers around the world want. Through technology and innovation, we will make driving safer.”
Super Cruise is GM’s working name for automated driving which the automaker claimed would provide hands-off lane following, braking and speed control during some highway driving conditions, an advance on today’s radar cruise controls. The system is designed to increase the comfort of an attentive driver on freeways, both in bumper to bumper traffic and on long road trips.
GM thinks V2V communication technology could mitigate many traffic collisions and improve traffic congestion by sending and receiving basic safety information such as location, speed and direction of travel between vehicles approaching each other. It will warn drivers and can supplement active safety features, such as forward collision warning, already available on many production cars.
Volvo’s upcoming XC90 is claimed to be the first car with automatic braking if the driver turns in front of an oncoming car. The car detects a potential crash and brakes automatically in order to avoid a collision or mitigate the consequences of a crash but there is no vehicle to vehicle communication. Yet.
GM noted a recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study which estimated that the economic and societal impact of motor vehicle crashes in the United States alone is more than US$870bn a year.
“Advancing technology so that people can more safely live their lives is a responsibility we embrace,” Barra added.
See Mary Barra’s speech here
