GM's Ultra Cruise to Offer Hands-Free City Driving for MY-2023

General Motors has unveiled Ultra Cruise, an all-new, driver-assistance technology.

Ultra Cruise is designed to enable hands-free driving in 95% of all driving scenarios, GM said it eventually can be used on every paved road in the U.S. and Canada. This technology will cover over 2 million miles of roads at launch in the U.S. and Canada. It has the capacity to grow up to more than 3.4 million miles.

“Ultra Cruise is not just a game changer in terms of what it enables ­− a door-to-door hands-free driving experience − but a technological one as well," said Doug Parks, GM executive vice president of Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain. “It's been developed completely in-house.”

Ultra Cruise works through a combination of cameras, radars and LiDAR, developing accurate, 360-degree, three-dimensional statistical representations of the environment surrounding vehicles with redundancies in critical areas. Ultra Cruise also incorporates an integrated LiDAR behind the windshield.

GM’s two hands-free advanced driver-assist systems will both be in the company’s lineup with Super Cruise available on more mainstream vehicles and Ultra Cruise reserved for premium entries.

“The combination of Ultra Cruise for premium offerings and Super Cruise for lower-cost products will enable us to offer driver-assist technology across price points and segments,” said Parks.

Ultra Cruise automated driving features:

• Provide users with information based on their experience with the system through an all-new display
• React to permanent traffic control devices
• Follow internal navigation routes
• Maintain headway; follow speed limits
• Support automatic and on-demand lane change
• Support left and right-hand turns
• Support close object avoidance
• Support parking in residential driveways

“We believe that the combination of different sensors, or sensor fusion, leads to the most robust hands-free driver-assist system for our customers,” Parks said

The Ultra Cruise Human Machine Interface system will provide information to the driver and communicates when they need to be in control of the vehicle. The primary HMI in Ultra Cruise-equipped vehicles, the Ultra Cruise Dynamic Display, is a freeform display directly in the driver’s line of sight. It’s designed to help drivers stay focused on the road.

Cadillac will be the first to introduce this technology. Ultra Cruise will join GM’s lineup of hands-free advanced driver-assist systems on select models in 2023.