Barra announced Cadillac would offer advanced “intelligent and connected” vehicle technologies on 2017 model year vehicles including a driver assist technology called Super Cruise, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication.
GM’s CEO Mary Barra said yesterday that GM would offer vehicle-to-vehicle communication, V2V in that awful techie jargon, as well as vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, and ultimately, fully autonomous driving starting two years from now in a 2017 model Cadillac CTS. Barra also said GM would bring advanced or highly automated driving technology to the market in other models during roughly the same period.
“We are not doing anything for the sake of the technology itself. We’re doing it because it’s what customers around the world want – and not just GM owners,” said Barra.
As anyone who follows the business knows, vehicles are much more intelligent than they used to be. During the last 10 years, for example, short- and long-range radars, cameras and sensors allowed for adaptive cruise control, cross-traffic alerts and crash-imminent braking that can stop a car even if the driver’s foot isn’t on the brake pedal and his brain is distracted by web surfing.
The auto industry is awash in new technologies that were once unthinkable – adaptive forward lighting, rear-vision cameras, blind-zone monitoring and lane keeping to cite the most prominent.
Many of these technologies underlie something GM calls “Super Cruise,” the working name for the GM semi-automated driving technology that allows for hands-free driving on the highway – both at speed and in stop-and-go driving.
The next steps to allow fully automated driving is urban roads. Demonstration programs are underway that use around the car risk detection and driver assist software that needs to be defect free. GM and Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated that this with a Chevy Tahoe in 2007 when it drove itself through 60 miles of mixed traffic, intersections and stop signs.
NHTSA claimed in a recent V2V report that V2V-equipped vehicles perceive some threats sooner than sensors, cameras or radar can, and warn their drivers accordingly.
When cars can talk to the infrastructure, a badly name V2I, the benefits will – in theory – multiply. V2I-enabled red lights will not stop traffic when they are not needed and real-time traffic updates will help reduce congestion.
Here the U.S. is arguably behind since active traffic management projects now running in European countries – England, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands. The M4 and M5 Smart Motorways around Bristol, England now include variable speed limits, dynamic routing and lane markings, and improved traveler information systems.
One of the latest smart highway projects is California’s revision of I-80 in the San Francisco East Bay area, a notoriously congested and dangerous commute. Sensors, cameras and people are collecting and communicating traffic information about the freeway, major side streets and ramps. The goal is to reduce the 2,000 crashes that happen in that area each year.
