local time Dave Richardson, Senior Vice President of Tech Crunch General Engines The software and service development department said in an interview that the company is developing an L3-level autonomous driving system “technology that drivers will no longer need to monitor the road.”

Currently, most car companies use the L2 level (assisted/intelligent driving) of autonomous driving; This means that only partial automation can be achieved and the driver still needs to constantly monitor road conditions. “GM Super Cruise is the industry-leading L2 hands-free driving system, but we are increasing our efforts to upgrade it to L3 so you no longer have to look at the road,” the aforementioned executive said. he said.

IT Note: General Motors’ current Super Cruise relies on a collaboration of lidar map data, precision GPS, cameras and radar sensors. It is also equipped with a driver attention monitoring system that allows the driver to look ahead and observe road conditions while driving. When activated, Super Cruise can automatically accelerate or brake to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front, steer to maintain lane position, and automatically change lanes to overtake slower vehicles.

The management did not announce the official launch date or the specific development process of the new version of the autonomous driving system. “Once we achieve autonomous L3 control, we will reach a significant milestone and change the course of the industry. But what really matters is the timing of reaching full maturity. “Premature launch may result in loss of user trust.”

He said: “If the system is bothering you and always suddenly switching out of autonomous driving mode, it’s like taking a 15-year-old kid who’s just learning to drive out on the road; you can’t quite relax.”

One recently hired GM suggests he’s upping his game to do just that.

Last December, General Motors hired Anantha Kancherla as vice president of advanced driver assistance systems. One of its missions is to deliver the next phase of technological innovation based on the Super Cruise system. This includes expanding the ability to monitor the driver’s attention beyond Super Cruise to prevent distraction when the system is not activated. This feature was launched a few months ago as a driver assistance system.

Kancerla previously worked in Silicon Valley at tech companies like Meta, Microsoft and Dropbox, but his experience as vice president of software at Lyft’s driverless unit may be the most useful experience for GM. Kancherla and Richardson are also among the software talent GM is poaching from Silicon Valley. Richardson joined GE last year after 11 years at Apple.