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Impressive Cadillac CT6 Supercruise

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Supercruise can only work on major highways and only in the US.Canada. How is that impressive? It relies on very accurate mapping so that it always going to limit it's usefulness. Move ahead 5 years where something like autopilot or other non mapping solutions get a lot better - you can use them on any road, anywhere in the World, whether they are mapped our not. If a road get's upgraded/changed you don't have to wait for GM to re-map and update.

I think it's limitations mean it's always going to be niche - major highways only and major countries only.
 
...It relies on very accurate mapping...

The car itself does not have LIDAR so GM has to send one equipped with LIDAR and map specific areas first.

Once that's done, your system is functional as long as you are within those restricted areas.

Tesla doesn't like that philosophy that your company only programs in such a way that only benefit a specific route but not others.

That's why Tesla delayed its driverless coast-to-coast trip planned for 12/2017.

It could have met the deadline if it would program to run driverlessly for that particular LAX to NYC route but not for the rest of the routes for rest of owners in the world.

That's why Tesla wants to delay the demo because it wants all owners and all routes in all over the world to benefit from that.
 
yes. Spot on. I was driving my X on a motorway a couple of days ago where there are major road works. They "moved' the lanes about 12 metres left and re-lined the road. The X adjusted great but Supercruise would have croaked. When you drive on anything less than a motoroway , supercruise just doesn't work but adaptive (non mapping) systems continue to work just fine.

Just not a fan of the tech and think it's very limiting. They would need to add in other systems to make it use mapping if it's there and other sensors if it's not.

The car itself does not have LIDAR so GM has to send one equipped with LIDAR and map specific areas first.

Once that's done, your system is functional as long as you are within those restricted areas.

Tesla doesn't like that philosophy that your company only programs in such a way that only benefit a specific route but not others.

That's why Tesla delayed its driverless coast-to-coast trip planned for 12/2017.

It could have met the deadline if it would program to run driverlessly for that particular LAX to NYC route but not for the rest of the routes for rest of owners in the world.

That's why Tesla wants to delay the demo because it wants all owners and all routes in all over the world to benefit from that.
 
The bigger thing to me: the Tesla system has better longevity. Since Supercruise relies on GM’s mapping, and since they clearly aren’t going to stick with that going forward, as they’d be left in the dust if they did, how long do you think GM is going to work on keeping their maps up to date? As soon as they stop doing so, their entire system becomes useless. I’d predict that within 5 years, Supercruise will be disabled on all cars that currently have it.
 
Understand you are not talking about a cheap car, nor one recently developed, the system was demonstrated for autosteering hands-free in 2012 to the media on a closed course.
The navigation maps are subscription, like it or not, and a profit center. You are sort of nuts not subscribing to OnStar if you can afford a CT6 Platinum, sort of like buying a 80" 4k 3D TV and just hooking it up to a TV antenna. It comes with a subscription, but when it expires, you need to renew at least to the Emergency Services plan within 7 months or Super Cruise is disabled.

But don't mistake it for a 100% geomapped system. It does evaluate it's surroundings, and will vibrate the seat, talk to you, change the steering wheel color, put a warning on the HUD and cluster, to let you know the system is not 100% locked in. It has default-fail redundancy, which sucks for those who want convenience over safety. If it thinks you are unconscious, it shuts down and calls for help.

But in the end, it's a safety system, not heated cupholders. It is designed primarily to save your life like their kick-ass FAB and Thermal Imaging. It's not to allow watching Grey's Anatomy on PCH while you're drunk or texting, which is what buyers want. Hence why I think it will fail for the time being. People don't want another safety system, they want full autonomy when it doesn't exist. AP is closer to autonomy than SC, since SC won't let you sit in the passenger seat while driving on surface streets.

So it is nothing even similar to AutoPilot. Why GM is comparing the two is puzzling. I'm not sure I'd even make that connection. GM marketing has never been their strongest department. Dumb ads all the time. Never realizing what the strong point is in their cars or the weak points. Trucks? Not so bad.

My commercial for the Super Cruise:

Dark highway in desert, moonless night.
Middle age elegant woman driving the car.
You see her nodding off, and the various warnings to stay alert. The car does not weave when her hands slip off the wheel.
She nods off completely right as a deer starts to cross the road at 300+ feet
All hell breaks lose and she stops in plenty of time for the deer and it's fawn to cross the road.
She talks to her car:
"I just had quite a scare. How close is the nearest hotel?"
"Is everything all right? Do you need emergency services?"
"No, I'm just need a place to spend the night."
"Let me find that for you."... "It is 12 miles away, do you want a reservation?"
"Yes please"
"Confirmed, is there anything else I can help you with?"
"No thank you."
"You're welcome, let us know if you need anything, good-bye."

Cadillac with Super Cruise. When two drivers are safer than one, it can save your life.
 
The car itself does not have LIDAR so GM has to send one equipped with LIDAR and map specific areas first.

Once that's done, your system is functional as long as you are within those restricted areas.

Tesla doesn't like that philosophy that your company only programs in such a way that only benefit a specific route but not others.

That's why Tesla delayed its driverless coast-to-coast trip planned for 12/2017.

It could have met the deadline if it would program to run driverlessly for that particular LAX to NYC route but not for the rest of the routes for rest of owners in the world.

That's why Tesla wants to delay the demo because it wants all owners and all routes in all over the world to benefit from that.

Yea that's why.

The sun got in my eyes, coach!
 
The bigger thing to me: the Tesla system has better longevity. Since Supercruise relies on GM’s mapping, and since they clearly aren’t going to stick with that going forward, as they’d be left in the dust if they did, how long do you think GM is going to work on keeping their maps up to date? As soon as they stop doing so, their entire system becomes useless. I’d predict that within 5 years, Supercruise will be disabled on all cars that currently have it.

That probably won't be a good bet. GM has been deploying Vehicle to Vehicle systems in retail cars since 2017. The first production autonomous GM cars will be on the road within a year according to plans.

Cadillac is the GM 'new safety tech' pathfinder division. The technology will trickle down. Note that the Super Cruise cars are priced the same as the 2016/2017 CT6 Platinum cars, which lends us to believe the processing power and sensors are already in the Cadillacs. Only the steering wheel is different.

To assume GM will abandon autonomy-for-safety technology at this stage is assuming GM will file bankruptcy again. They have invested far over $2 billion in safety technologies this decade.

2009 and earlier GM cars are still getting updated NAV maps. Now they are OTA on some models. However, they are heading for autonomy quicker than all other automakers at this point.

Certainly could reverse their investment at this stage. But the odds are slim. About the same odds of Tesla putting in vibrating seats, heads-up display, and thermal imaging as retrofits.
 
That probably won't be a good bet. GM has been deploying Vehicle to Vehicle systems in retail cars since 2017. The first production autonomous GM cars will be on the road within a year according to plans.

Cadillac is the GM 'new safety tech' pathfinder division. The technology will trickle down. Note that the Super Cruise cars are priced the same as the 2016/2017 CT6 Platinum cars, which lends us to believe the processing power and sensors are already in the Cadillacs. Only the steering wheel is different.

To assume GM will abandon autonomy-for-safety technology at this stage is assuming GM will file bankruptcy again. They have invested far over $2 billion in safety technologies this decade.

2009 and earlier GM cars are still getting updated NAV maps. Now they are OTA on some models. However, they are heading for autonomy quicker than all other automakers at this point.

Certainly could reverse their investment at this stage. But the odds are slim. About the same odds of Tesla putting in vibrating seats, heads-up display, and thermal imaging as retrofits.

To be clear, I wasn’t saying that GM would abandon autonomy. Quite the opposite: the current Supercruise technology in cars is a dead end requiring constant maintenance to even keep it running(as soon as their maps are at all out of date, the whole thing falls apart). So when they do start releasing consumer cars with the hardware actually required for full autonomy without such ridiculous continuous cost, they’ll abandon the current crop of cars.

On the other side: if Tesla went completely belly up today, our cars would continue to function with the current features for their lifetimes.
 
On the other side: if Tesla went completely belly up today, our cars would continue to function with the current features for their lifetimes.
Not when those features rely on back-end services. Autopilot and Navigation depend on the ability to download maps. Speech command recognition already stopped working for some folks who didn't accept the corresponding Tesla firmware update when there was a change in the Google protocol. Your radio might work as long as TuneIn and Slacker client interfaces don't change, and internet access is still available. But without Tesla, there are no remote control features via mobile app, and no supercharging.

Imagine you were to find a 10-year old computer in a closet and you booted it up today. Everything on that computer that doesn't require the network will work just as well as it did 10 years ago. But the remote storage and chat apps don't work because the companies stopped providing those services, and the web browser can't connect to most sites anymore, because servers have changed and don't accept older insecure protocols. It would be much like that.

Fortunately Tesla isn't going away in the foreseeable future. :)
 
Not when those features rely on back-end services. Autopilot and Navigation depend on the ability to download maps. Speech command recognition already stopped working for some folks who didn't accept the corresponding Tesla firmware update when there was a change in the Google protocol. Your radio might work as long as TuneIn and Slacker client interfaces don't change, and internet access is still available. But without Tesla, there are no remote control features via mobile app, and no supercharging.

Imagine you were to find a 10-year old computer in a closet and you booted it up today. Everything on that computer that doesn't require the network will work just as well as it did 10 years ago. But the remote storage and chat apps don't work because the companies stopped providing those services, and the web browser can't connect to most sites anymore, because servers have changed and don't accept older insecure protocols. It would be much like that.

Fortunately Tesla isn't going away in the foreseeable future. :)

I was mostly referring to Autopilot, which doesn't appear to rely on an active connection at all. It uses maps, but in a very limited fashion that would continue to work long after any online service disappeared(hence, you can still use AP just fine in remote areas).