What Is Cadillac Super Cruise?

Learning About Caddy’s Semi-Autonomous Tech

With autonomous cars making plenty of headlines in the past few years, it might seem like self-driving cars are just around the corner. But there are many hurdles to fully autonomous passenger cars, including regulatory and insurance barriers, not to mention public willingness to hand over control to the car.

Some of the features that are critical to future self-driving cars actually exist in some vehicles currently available in dealerships. They are called semiautonomous systems, and Cadillac Super Cruise, found in the 2018 Cadillac CT6, is one prime example.

SuperCruise utilizes many driver safety systems at the same time to allow the driver to take their hands off the wheel in certain driving situations. Super Cruise is an available feature on the Prestige trim of the 2018 CT6.

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“Level 2” Self-Driving Car

Our article, “9 Cars Cars That Are Almost Self Driving,” explains the various levels of vehicle autonomy, as determined by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Based on its functionality, Super Cruise is a Level 2 autonomous system.

The foundation of systems like Super Cruise is found in currently available high-tech safety systems, such as forward collision warning, lane departure warning, and blind spot warning. Sensors on the CT6 also allow for “automatic lane centering,” which can read the lines on the road and keep the CT6 centered while traveling at highway speeds.

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Mapping Major Roads in the U.S. and Canada

Cadillac also worked with engineers using lidar to map every mile of every major highway in the United States and Canada. Because of this additional mapping, Cadillac claims the system is four-to-eight times more precise than other forms of GPS.

The combination of GPS, lidar mapping, and the suite of cameras and sensors all work together to create a digital road. With this suite of information, the CT6 can “see” the road, knowing what road it is on and what lane it is in.

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How It Operates

The result is that the driver can engage Super Cruise and the car will travel along at highway speeds as the highway bends left and right.The Super Cruise-equipped sedan will slow down as it encounters slower vehicles ahead of it on the highway.

The system will only work on “limited-access” highways – divided highways with clearly marked lane lines, which are critical for the camera sensors to pick up. It doesn't work with intersections, streets with changing lane lines, and surface roads in general.

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Making Sure You’re Still Paying Attention

Critical to Super Cruise is a driver attention system – a small camera on top of the steering column that focuses on the driver. It works with infrared lights to figure out where the driver is looking – so you still can’t use your phone.

If you do turn your eyes and/or head away from the road, the system will sound an alert. Lest you think you can simply nod off and sleep through the alerts, Super Cruise is programmed to bring the CT6 to a controlled stop and contact OnStar to alert first responders in the event of an unresponsive driver.

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Competitors

Cadillac is not alone in the semiautonomous game. Tesla has a system with similar capabilities, called Autopilot. The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is available with Intelligence Drive, and the BMW 7 Series is available with the Active Driving Assistance Plus Package. These features offer varying levels of “semiautonomy,” and for the future of self-driving cars, it will be critical to see how popular – and reliable – these driver systems are.

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