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Super Cruise’s failsafes

Even though Super Cruise is not a fully autonomous system, it incorporates redundancies like those used in aircraft to ensure failsafe operation. Before taking off on a 700-mile, 11-hour test drive of the system — and putting my life in its hands without my hands on the wheel — I sat down with Daryl Wilson, lead development engineer for Super Cruise, to get a deep dive into the system and its critical safety backups. Autoblog: First, what makes Super Cruise different from similar systems? Wilson: The key differentiator for Super Cruise is hand-free driving. It's an industry first in that respect. Our competitors require the driver at minimum to place their hands on the wheel with some frequency to ensure that the car knows that the driver is there. We don't. Two key technologies allow us to do this. One is our Driver Attention System, which is our methodology for making sure the driver is engaged with the vehicle and engaged with the road. This is a driver assist system, not a fully autonomous system. So it requires driver engagement. We use an infrared camera that constantly monitors the driver's face to determine the direction they're looking. We're looking for the driver to be what we call on-road — not on the center stack, not to left or right or down. That's all done by the tracking of the face. We also track that the eyes are open. It's infrared because at night you need to illuminate the face and you can't be shining a light into the driver's face. Then we have our lidar mapping that provides a foundation for control and redundancy to ensure safe performance. Autoblog: How does the mapping act as a redundant feature? Wilson: This system is only for use on divided, controlled access highways. What I mean by a divided highway is something more than a painted line between you and oncoming traffic. Whether that's a grassy area in between the lanes or a concrete barrier, anything that separates you from oncoming traffic. That's the divided highway part. The controlled access part is entrance ramps and exit ramps. Not with roads that cross at grade, with traffic crossing at the same level. To do that we geofenced these roads to ensure that operation is only allowed in these conditions. We don't just recommend you use it there; we ensure that you only use it there.

Chrysler, Nissan looking into claim that their cars are industry's most hackable

A pair of cyber security experts have awarded the ignominious title of most hackable vehicles on American roads to the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, 2014 Infiniti Q50 and 2015 Cadillac Escalade.
Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek are set to release a report at the Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas, Automotive News reports. The two men found the Jeep, Caddy and Q50 were easiest to hack based not on actual tests with the vehicles, but a detailed analysis of systems like Bluetooth and wireless internet access - basically, anything that'd allow a hacker to remotely gain access to the vehicle's systems.
Considering this lack of hands-on testing, the pair acknowledge that "most hackable" could be a relative term - they point out that the vehicles may actually be quite secure.

Cadillac XT4-V on the way?

An anonymous photographer sent Cadillac Society two tightly cropped images of an XT4 crossover wearing two surprising badges. On the right, above the taillight, there's a 2.7 badge, In the lower right corner there's a V Series badge — the full-fat, multicolored V badge, not the monochrome V-Sport version. The images — assuming they're real — elicit more questions and no answers, the first being, is this the XT4 V-Sport that's been rumored since last October? Back then, GM Authority discovered front and rear images of such a vehicle hiding in plain sight, on a Cadillac site landing page. The backside of a thick-hipped XT4 is graced with the old V-Sport badge. We know the carmaker has split its V Series cars into two tiers, the lower intended to be less intimidating than before, the upper tier the continuation of the mongo V Series cars we've known and loved. The hints have been that the entry level will be called V Series, while the upper level takes the name "Blackwing," after the name of Cadillac's new 4.2-liter, twin-turbo V8 engine. With Mark Reuss himself having said, "We got rid of all the V-Sports," this supposed XT4-V offers more proof that V Series effectively represents a new V-Sport line. The only cosmetic giveaways to increased performance we can see are a carbon fiber trim in the license plate area, and an exhaust treatment similar to that on the recently introduced CT4-V. We're not certain what the 2.7 badge means for V branding on crossovers. The standard XT4 wears a 2.0 badge on the tailgate, representing its 2.0-liter four-cylinder with 237 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. The XT5 gets a number, too, but the XT6 does not. GM's 2.7-liter four cylinder with 311 hp and 348 lb-ft first showed up in the Chevy Silverado, will get 320 hp and 369 lb-ft in the coming CT4-V, and has been predicted for the XT4-V. However, V cars — both Sport and Series — have never worn displacement badges. The new CT4-V and CT5-V go without numerical identifiers on their decklids. If there is an XT4-V on the way this year, we only have a few months before we see it and get some answers.