2018 Cadillac CT6

JASON KAVANAGH: Hey, everyone. Dan and Jay here, and welcome to our latest comparison video featuring Cadillac Super Cruise versus Tesla Autopilot. DAN EDMUNDS: What you're about to see was shot in February. Since then, Tesla has updated its Autopilot software, and we've been out to retest it. JASON KAVANAGH: Now, there's a separate video that addresses the updated software. And there's a link to it at the end of this video. So make sure to check that out. DAN EDMUNDS: A lot of people are excited by the prospect of autonomous vehicles and self-driving cars. And just about everyone has heard of Tesla's Autopilot. But it's not the only game in town, because Cadillac has just introduced Super Cruise. JASON KAVANAGH: So we rounded up our long-term Tesla Model 3, which is equipped with Autopilot, and a Cadillac CT6, which has the Super Cruise system. We're not comparing the cars here. This is strictly a comparison of the two systems. We're going to take these two vehicles out into the real world to see what these systems are made of. DAN EDMUNDS: So I'm driving a Cadillac CT6 sedan. And it's pretty nice. One of the things that this car has is something that they call Super Cruise, which is pretty much a super cruise control. Right now, the car is managing the speed that we're driving by managing the gap to the car ahead. That's adaptive cruise control. This has the ability also to steer the car in an auto-steer mode indefinitely, so long as certain conditions are met. The road has to be surveyed. In other words, the car needs to know that this is limited-access freeway. It doesn't have any kind of intersections or any possibility of a car turning in front of us. If you go to the Super Cruise website, you'll see a map of the United States and it has which interstate highways are part of the Super Cruise network. And it also needs to know that I'm looking straight ahead and I'm engaged in the task of driving. And it does that by using a sensor here and two sensors here in the wheel. I saw the little gray steering wheel appear for a moment. There it is again. Press the button. And here we go. We're in hands-free mode. This is a real hands-free system because this system is looking at where my head is pointed and where my eyes are pointed. So if I look over here to the camera too long, eventually it's going to get mad at me and this will start to blink, and it will be my indication that hey, there it goes. The system has it pretty well under control, but this is not autonomy. This is another step closer to autonomy, but we're not there yet, because it still needs me to monitor the situation. JASON KAVANAGH: I'm driving our long-term Tesla Model 3 and one of the options that we made sure to select is Autopilot. And Autopilot is Tesla's semi-autonomous driving mode. It's not a self-driving mode. It's really an adaptive cruise control system with a very sophisticated lane-keeping system working in conjunction with it. There are a variety of sensors and cameras on the outside of the car that are monitoring not only the lane markings, but also traffic around the vehicle in order for it to get its bearings on where it is on the road. You turn on Autopilot pretty simply. You tap this lever twice and boom, we're in Autopilot. And I can take my hands off the wheel for a brief amount of time. Eventually, it'll start to make angry noises and is telling me to put my hands back on the wheel. And if you don't put your hands back on the wheel, it will cancel Autopilot for the duration of that drive. So you want to make sure you put your hands back on the wheel. Autopilot is engaged and active when you have this blue steering wheel icon illuminated. When that's not illuminated, you're basically either just driving or it's adaptive cruise only. And it's showing you on the screen these blue lines are showing that it sees the lane markings. It's got these waves on the side of the car when you're near another car in an adjacent lane, and then it's got vehicles in front on the screen when you've got vehicles directly in front of the car you're driving. So right there, it lost one on the lane markings and wandered to the edge of the lane. So I intervened in order to put it back in the lane. So it's not a perfect system. As the driver, you still have to pay attention to what's going on. It's, again, not a self-driving mode. DAN EDMUNDS: So we're in morning commute traffic here in Santa Monica on the west side, and it's pretty notorious. And I'm going 16 miles an hour, and I'm doing it hands-free, so long as I'm looking straight ahead. And that's key, because if I'm not looking straight ahead and something happens, there won't be time for me to react. But because I'm looking straight ahead, I probably will naturally put my hands on the wheel and reengage before the system even tells me to, because my Spidey Sense is always off. JASON KAVANAGH: In traffic, Autopilot is really in its element. It's got enough information from the surrounding vehicles that it knows its place and it can deal quite well. Coming up in the carpool lane a little later is a K-rail that's pretty close to the edge of the lane, so we're going to see how well it deals with that. Going to have a light touch on the wheel here. Had no trouble with that at all. DAN EDMUNDS: You know, carpool lanes can be narrower than normal lanes, and they can be really close to the concrete center divider, as you can see this one is. But I am approaching a freeway intersection. It knows that I'm going to go straight and not exit the freeway. No, it doesn't seem to know that. It's telling me to take control. And had a red indicator came on, basically saying, hey, I need you to be engaged. But you know what? It just came back on. So that was an artifact. I think what happens is whenever the computer gets confused-- I got passed by an SUV. That SUV looked like maybe it was going to come in front of me. Maybe the computer wasn't sure. And so it said hey, put your hands back on the wheel. JASON KAVANAGH: So Autopilot's got a little bit of a idiosyncrasy where it wants your hands on the wheel in order for Autopilot to remain active, but you can't put too much pressure on or it thinks that you want to take over the task of driving. So it's a little bit of a balancing act to get accustomed to how much pressure to put on the steering wheel, but it's not too hard. One of the features it has is an automatic lane change. I can just put the blinker on and it changes lanes automatically without any intervention from the driver. It's a pretty neat trick. DAN EDMUNDS: This doesn't have the lane change feature that a Tesla has. They're not willing to go quite that far. They would like the driver to be the one who initiates and executes a lane change. So I'm going to put on my turn signal. Now when I change lanes, this is going to turn blue, which means auto steer is in pause. And as soon as I get centered, it's going to turn green. It's not there yet. There it is. And now I can go back into this mode. 65-70 miles an hour. And there's some corners, and no problem. You know, freeway corners have a big radius. This system only really works on the freeway, so no problem coping. JASON KAVANAGH: Now, we're on a divided freeway right now, and this is kind of the ideal environment to use Autopilot. And the reason is because it throws the fewest variables at the car. In other words, you don't have to deal with stop signs or traffic signals, which auto pilot can't deal with. It also has traffic going in only one direction with the divider, so that makes things easier for the system as well. So it's just trying to take us off the freeway onto a different freeway, so I had to intervene right there. So we're going to see how this system deals with the loss of a lane. We've got a lane merge coming up right here. Our lane is going away. And it seems to be OK. It handled the loss of a lane with no problem whatsoever. DAN EDMUNDS: So just a minute ago the red light flashed and I was asked to put my hands back on the wheel. And at first, I didn't understand why, and then I came onto this construction zone. They've got k rail up here. These two lanes are dug up. So obviously, they know that this section is under construction and they're not allowing Super Cruise to work in the construction area. So we've seen what happens when I look away or when I turn my head. And I'm wearing glasses. But what if I was wearing sunglasses? Well, we can try that out. It can see that I am looking where I need to be looking. If I turn my head to the side, it's going to warn me to look ahead, and there it goes. But I don't know if it's going to be able to pick up the side eye. If I glance away underneath my glasses, will it pick up that? Oh, it did. It's a pretty powerful system. It's got pretty high confidence that it knows what the driver is looking at. JASON KAVANAGH: Autopilot is trying the center the car in the lane, and you can tell that it's constantly trying to find the edges of the lane with its sensors and cameras, because there's a slight weaving effect here. We're sort of caroming gently in the middle of the lane. Autopilot has no restrictions on where it can be used. In other words, you can enable Autopilot on a limited-access freeway like we're on currently. You can have it active on a side street. Basically anywhere the lane markings are clearly defined and it has a reference, Autopilot will work. So while that's true, it's a system that you should really use primarily on the freeway, like on a long road trip, just because of some of the limitations of the system on a side street environment. DAN EDMUNDS: Right now, the system isn't seeing the lane lines, and it's not reengaging. And that's because we're on a concrete freeway that's been bleached out by the sun. The city here has put black strips, so it's almost like this particular road has black lane stripes. And the system had a little bit of a hard time making sense of that. But now that it has, I'm back in Super Cruise mode. It's just a sign that this system is conservative. It's trying to make the safest decision possible and not just go off and calling it good enough. JASON KAVANAGH: Now in this two-lane road here, we're approaching an intersection now. It's a green light. Certainly, it's not going to stop for red lights, but we're green. It's looking for the lane markings, and Autopilot took it in stride. No issues at all. As long as it's got consistent lane markings, it's just fine. Once it loses the lane markings, then things are getting a little curveball. DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, interesting thing about Super Cruise is it's pretty relaxing. The ability to take your hands off the wheel and just kind of chill but be ready. I think that reduces the workload just a little bit, which might make that kind of travel more enjoyable. But certainly here, there's no anxiety involved in using this. It's quite the opposite. JASON KAVANAGH: Yeah. So when the lane gets really wide like that, sometimes it sort of dives toward the middle of the lane to try and find the lane markings on the opposite side. And once it finds them, it cuts across again to the other side. So this is where Autopilot seems to be performing the worst is on this two-lane road of gently rolling hills. Every other circumstance we've thrown at it, it's been much better. And this is not good at all. Wow. So it just crossed the double yellow. I would get pulled over if I drove the way the Autopilot's driving right now. I'm not letting it do that. So we had a truck coming head-on, and I didn't want to take any chances with Autopilot going over the double yellow again, so I just intervened right there. So Dan, one of the things I learned about using Autopilot is that while it allows you to use it anywhere at any time, it's really kind of better suited for freeway use than it is for side street use. DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah. And that's the thing about Super Cruise. You don't have that choice to make, because it only works on freeways that General Motors has blessed. And they also have sensors in the car that look at my face and eyes to make sure that they're looking straight ahead and I'm fully engaged. And the payoff for all of that is true hands-free capability. JASON KAVANAGH: Yeah, that's one thing about Autopilot is that it requires the drivers hands to be on the wheel, and that's sort of a pro and a con because it's more incumbent upon the driver to determine when it's safe to use the system and when maybe they don't want to. DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, and I think that's why I frankly trust this one more. JASON KAVANAGH: For more information on Teslas, Cadillacs, and everything else, go to Edmunds.com. JASON KAVANAGH: And don't forget to click Subscribe.