General Motors customers just hit a mark few driver-assist systems reach: one billion hands-free miles logged with Super Cruise since its 2017 debut. That’s across nearly 750,000 vehicles in North America, spanning 23 models from the affordable 2027 Chevrolet Bolt to the luxury Cadillac Escalade. Nearly half those miles—485.9 million—came in the past year alone, through 28.7 million trips totaling 7.1 million hours. Picture it. Over a million miles daily. Hands off the wheel.
“This 1 billion miles driven hands-free by our customers is just the start,” said Rashed Haq, GM’s vice president of vehicle autonomy, in the company’s press release. Super Cruise works only on pre-mapped divided highways, lidar-scanned for precision, with an infrared camera locked on the driver’s eyes. No gaze, no go. That setup debuted in the Cadillac CT6. Back then, compatible roads totaled just 160,000 miles. Today? Close to 700,000 miles.
Average trip: 17 miles, 24 minutes hands-free. More than half the owners fire it up weekly. Close to 85% monthly. Subscriptions pace toward 850,000 by year-end, with 30-40% renewing after the free three-year trial via OnStar. Vehicles equipped jumped 70% last year. Daily users? Up 80%. It’s sticky. “It really shows how Super Cruise is passing what I call the toothbrush test,” Haq told Ars Technica. “The customers are using it continuously. Once they use it, they never go back.”
Safety stands out. GM claims zero crashes tied to Super Cruise over the billion miles, building on earlier reports of none in 700 million. Eyes stay on the road. The system disengages if they don’t. Studies back lower hard-braking events versus manual drive. No advanced automatic crash notifications on compatible roads, per telematics data. But. It’s Level 2. Driver responsible. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving? Nearly 10 billion miles total by now, per its safety page, across all roads—not just highways, not always hands-free. Tesla hit 8.4 billion earlier this year, half in 2025, with 1.3 million subscribers. CarBuzz notes the gap: GM trails by billions, but apples-to-oranges conditions.
Expansion fueled growth. From CT6 luxury to Chevy Silverado pickups, GMC Hummer EVs, Buick Enclave. Even towing now. Mapped network quadrupled since 2018 tests. Usage doubles yearly. That data loop—diverse weather, traffic, roads—feeds AI training. Over 200 dev vehicles now test next-gen on California and Michigan highways, supervised. Eyes-off highway driving. Level 3. Coming 2028 in the Escalade IQ.
GM bets big. “We are doing something unique in the autonomous space,” Haq said, “developing a system for personal vehicles that we can deploy on both ICE vehicles and EVs, and scale across multiple brands and price points.” No robotaxi pivot like Cruise, GM’s spun-out unit. Personal cars first. Data from retail miles beats sims, they argue. Ties into OnStar, soon boosted by Google Gemini AI in four million vehicles via OTA—natural voice queries, no Super Cruise needed.
But rivals lurk. Tesla’s FSD Supervised logs miles everywhere, unsupervised robotaxis loom. Ford’s BlueCruise covers 130,000 miles, Mercedes eyes Level 3 city streets. BMW pulls back. GM pushes scale: Equinox EV gets hands-free cheap. Bolt EUV next year, most affordable yet. Attach rates hit 30-40% post-trial. Revenue? OnStar topped 12 million global subs end-2025, Super Cruise doubling users.
One billion miles equals 2,100 moon round-trips, per GM. Or Jupiter and back, say CarScoops. Autoblog frames it as Tesla challenge: usage doubled, AI incoming. InsideEVs eyes 850,000 subs. Growth accelerates. Testing ramps. 2028 eyes-off? On track, Haq insists. “Customers should be able to use it sometime in 2028.”
Highway-only limits scale versus Tesla’s everywhere ambition. Yet zero crashes shine. Renewal proves trust. GM’s path: cautious maps, camera checks, now eyes-off highways. Data mountain grows. Fleet hits critical mass. Personal autonomy, not fleets. Watch 2028.
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