General Motors has laid out a roadmap to expand autonomous driving across its best-selling models.
GM said on the 23rd that it unveiled the roadmap and a next-generation electrical and computing architecture at its GM Forward event held in New York on the 21st.
The automaker plans to introduce highway autonomous driving on the Cadillac Escalade IQ starting in 2028. Pre-production vehicles are currently being tested on closed courses, and at the event GM outlined plans to extend the feature to its major internal combustion models.
The next-generation architecture underpinning the system separates hardware from software and builds a computing, network, software and interface framework that can be applied across both internal combustion and electric vehicles. It is designed to apply the same technology base to a range of models while retaining the hardware and control functions each vehicle requires for its specific use.
At the center is a liquid-cooled central computing unit (CCU) designed in-house by GM. The CCU delivers roughly 40 times the computing performance of current vehicles and consolidates software for autonomous driving, active safety, chassis and propulsion into a single high-speed system. That allows in-vehicle artificial intelligence features and the autonomous driving system to run simultaneously, while leaving computing headroom for future functions.
Zonal concentrators linked by high-speed Ethernet connect sensors and actuators over a high-speed data network, supporting 36 times more data processing than existing systems. The new architecture also cuts wiring length and weight by 30% and raises cellular connection speeds by up to 50%, improving in-vehicle communications and connected services.
GM said the setup will speed up development of software-defined vehicles. Improvements validated on one model can be rolled out across the lineup through over-the-air software updates. After first applying the system to the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028, GM plans to extend it to major internal combustion full-size sport utility vehicles and trucks, three-row crossovers and fourth-generation electric vehicles.
Development and validation of the autonomous driving system draw on experience accumulated on public roads and on AI training. Super Cruise customers have logged more than 1.2 billion cumulative miles of hands-free driving.
GM said it will verify safety and responsiveness through this learning process and real-world road validation, and broaden the reach of autonomous driving across its high-volume trucks and SUVs.