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GM's Buckle to Drive teen safety feature comes to more models for 2021

In 2014, GM announced a feature called "Belt Assurance," which would prevent a vehicle from being shifted out of park until the driver and front passenger had buckled their seatbelts. Initially launched on certain fleet vehicles in 2014, the feature rolled out as a free option on the 2015 GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Colorado, Cruze and Silverado. At the time, GM said it would push Belt Assurance to more models if customers took to it. That appears to have happened; come 2019, GM repackaged Belt Assurance as Buckle to Drive, part of the automaker's Teen Driver System that bundled tech such as geofencing and speed limit warnings to help parents keep track of their children's driving habits. In that implementation, the system only works when Teen Driver Mode is activated, locking out the shifter and muting the radio for 20 seconds or until the seatbelts are buckled, whichever comes first. The system shows a visual warning in the gauge cluster, too.  For this model year, the Teen Driver System came standard on 10 Chevy models, but Buckle to Drive was only allotted to the Colorado, Malibu and Traverse. Later this year, the 2021 Camaro will join the Chevys outfitted with the Teen Driver System and will get Buckle to Drive in addition. GM Authority reports that for the 2021 model year, Buckle to Drive will also be picked up by the Cadillac CT4 and CT5. Previously, the Cadillac ATS, CTS, Escalade and XTS came with the Teen Driver System, but three out of those four vehicles are no more, and the 2021 Escalade makes no mention of the Teen Driver System nor Buckle to Drive among its safety features. Elsewhere around the GM empire, the Buick Envision and Encore GX include the Teen Driver System, as do six GMC vehicles, but it's not clear when any will be upgraded with Buckle to Drive. The tech could help save numerous teenagers' lives. On its page of teen crash facts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention writes that roughly 300,000 teens between the ages of 16 and 19 ended up in emergency rooms to treat crash injuries in 2017. Furthermore, "only 58.8% of high school students always wore seat belts when riding as passengers," and, "Among young drivers aged 15-20 who died in car crashes in 2017, almost half were unrestrained at the time of the crash (when restraint use was known)." Related Video:    

Cadillac reveals stretched ATS-L in China

In the market for a new Cadillac, but need more space than an ATS can afford? Then you'll want to look at the larger CTS. Unless you live in China, where buyers - often chauffeured instead of driving themselves - seem to prefer a long-wheelbase version of a smaller sedan than upgrading to a larger one. For those buyers, Cadillac has released the new ATS-L.
Based on the existing ATS sports sedan, the ATS-L offers an extra 3.3 inches of rear legroom over the model we get here. As a result, the ATS-L stretches its wheelbase to 112.5 inches and its overall length to 186 inches, while riding a quarter-inch lower than the standard-wheelbase model, which itself was recently updated. That places its length in between the regular ATS and the CTS available Stateside.
Otherwise it's essentially the same sedan, but appears to ditch the base 2.0-liter four to offer either the 2.0-liter turbo four or 3.6-liter V6. Of course this model, produced locally for the Chinese market, isn't likely to make the transpacific voyage to US showrooms, so American buyers will still have to choose between the standard ATS, the larger CTS or the even larger XTS.

Watch the 2019 Autoblog Technology of the Year presentation to Cadillac

Autoblog presented our 2019 Technology of the Year Award to Cadillac at the Detroit Auto Show. Autoblog conducted rigorous testing last fall on the latest automotive technologies, and Cadillac Super Cruise earned top honors, edging out Infiniti's Variable Compression Turbo and Mercedes' EQ technologies, the other two finalists. Super Cruise is a semi-autonomous system that allows for hands-free driving to reduce the driver's workload. Our editors found it easy to use and noted the system simply works as intended. We happily found Cadillac under-promised and over-delivered with Super Cruise, a clever system that truly helps the driver. Super Cruise launched on the CT6 sedan, and Cadillac plans to roll out the feature to other vehicles. Watch the video above as Cadillac President Steve Carlisle receives the 2019 Autoblog Technology of the Year Award from Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore, with Autoblog GM Adam Morath and the editorial team on hand at the Detroit show. Related Video: