⚡ This Week’s Big Charge
💡 The Hands-Free Future Is Closer Than You Think. But Are We Ready?
My brain is broken from driving new cars all the time for work. I’m constantly exposed to the latest features, gadgets and specs that most consumers really only encounter when they buy a new car every decade or so. I get frustrated when a voice command system can’t Google an answer to my questions, and I roll my eyes at cars that don’t have the newest adaptive high beams.
Above all, I get deeply annoyed when using cruise control means keeping my hands on the steering wheel.
I’m not alone. Hands-free driver assistance has become a top feature for new-car shoppers. A recent AutoPacific study found 43% of Americans planning to buy a car in the next three years want hands-free highway driving, nearly double last year’s share.
If you’ve had a good experience with General Motors’ Super Cruise or Ford’s BlueCruise, you probably won’t want to go back. While modern radar- and camera-guided, lane-keeping cruise control systems are great, it’s irritating to have to keep your hands on the wheel—especially when you know that other cars out there can do more than that and yours cannot.
This week, a study from the marketing and research firm Telemetry says these partially automated, hands-free highway driving systems could be on more than 50% of all new passenger vehicles by 2028.
That’s a profound change in how we drive. But it also raises major questions about how these systems will function—and how to ensure their safety. To dig into that, I spoke with Sam Abuelsamid, an engineer and former journalist who is now Telemetry’s Vice President of Market Research. (You can purchase their study here.)
🚗 Case Study: General Motors
GM’s reaping the fruits of more than a decade of work. Super Cruise was announced in 2012, deployed on the first Cadillac model in 2017 (after a delay to add more safety features), and it’s been updated steadily since.
Super Cruise enables hands-free driving on mapped highways, but uses a camera to track the driver’s head and eyes to ensure they stay attentive.
By the end of 2025, Super Cruise will be available on about 750,000 miles of roads across the U.S. and Canada. It also works while towing a trailer on certain models.
Getting Super Cruise requires spending at least $2,000 for the trim level that includes it. After a three-year trial ends, owners can continue the service for $25 a month or $250 a year.
About 20% of customers driving Super Cruise-enabled models opt to subscribe after the trial period, GM announced in Q1 2025. People are paying for it—and that’s a big win for GM.
“It is still the best true hands-free system in terms of its capability, functionality, reliability, and where it can operate,” Abuelsamid said.