It's been seven years since GM debuted as the first automaker to offer hands-free driving with its Super Cruise advanced driver assistance system. Now it's looking to take that capability a step further-keeping eyes off the road too-said one of GM's top software executives.

These hands-off, eyes-off systems — also known in the industry as Level 3 or L3 — aren't self-driving cars like the types operated by Waymo (which are considered Level 4). Instead, they often work only on highways and at slower speeds. And unlike a robotaxi, it still requires a driver to take control if needed.

Despite these limitations, the hands-off, eyes-off system would push GM to a position only behind nearly every other automaker that offers such an advanced driver assistance system. Most major automakers today offer what is being called Level 2-some degree of automation, but the driver still has to pay attention. Tesla's Autopilot - and even its FSD software system - is still a Level 2, yet to be competitive with GM Super Cruise and Ford Blue Cruise systems. 
For that matter, only Mercedes-Benz offers a limited hands-off, eyes-off system called Drive Pilot, in the United States.

"Super Cruise, I think, is an industry-leading L2 solution for hands off, eyes on," said Dave Richardson, Senior Vice President of Software and Services Engineering at GM, in a wide-ranging interview with TechCrunch. "We're looking aggressively to make that an L3 solution, where you don't even have to look at the road anymore."

The Super Cruise uses a combination of lidar map data, high-precision GPS, cameras and radar sensors, as well as a driver attention system, which monitors the person behind the wheel to ensure they're watching the road. When the system is active, it will accelerate or brake to maintain a selected following distance from a vehicle ahead, steer to keep its lane position, and make automatic lane changes to pass slower traffic.

Even though Super Cruise was the first true hands-free ADAS offered in the market when it debuted for 2017, GM was not seen as a leader because it kept the system largely out of reach. For three years, the system was only on one model, the Cadillac CT6 and confined to divided highways. Now, Super Cruise is widely available across GM brands like Chevrolet and GMC. By the end of 2025, GM has committed Super Cruise will cover about 750,000 miles of roads in the United States and Canada, including rural and minor highways that so often join smaller cities and townships.
Richardson did not indicate when something like this might ever be ready for public release. And he was less than forthcoming as to just how much development had occurred toward this objective.

"When we have L3 I do think that's meaningful … I think that's a game changer," Richardson said. The crux, of course, is knowing when such a system is fully developed; launching anything earlier could turn customers off, Richardson noted.

"If you don't quite trust it, and it kicks you out, then it's sort of like — the analogy I give sometimes is —  you're driving with your 15-year-old that's just learning how to drive. You don't really trust them, and it almost becomes a little bit more stressful."

Some newcomers suggest the company is indeed upping their ante.

GM added Anantha Kancherla to the team as vice president of ADAS in December. One of Kancherla's directives, according to spokesperson Stuart Fowle, is to take the foundation of Super Cruise and expand or innovate to the next phase. That includes leveraging the Super Cruise system-notably through software-and applying it elsewhere. For instance, the driver's eye monitoring system applied to ensure the eyes are on the road has recently been used to discourage distracted driving even when the Super Cruise is not engaged. That feature, called driver attention assist, became available a few months ago. A longtime Silicon Valley tech industry veteran, Kancherla has experience at Meta, Microsoft, and Dropbox. But his five years as VP engineering of software at Lyft's autonomous vehicles unit may prove most valuable to GM. (Lyft sold that business to Toyota.)

Kancherla and Richardson represent a wave of recent software-focused hires who come from Silicon Valley tech companies. Richardson joined GM last year after an 11-year stint at Apple.