General Motors’ Super Cruise is among the most popular and sophisticated advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) in the U.S., alongside Ford’s BlueCruise and Tesla’s Autopilot.
The hands-free system, which is capable of accelerating, braking and steering on its own in certain conditions while you actively monitor the road, now has more than 625,000 active users across the U.S. and Canada. Those drivers have access to over 750,000 miles of mapped roads, making Super Cruise one of the most widely deployed hands-free systems on the market today.
That scale matters. In many ways, Super Cruise is laying the groundwork for what GM wants to roll out next: Level 3 autonomy, where drivers will one day be able to take their eyes off the road entirely while the car handles the driving. GM says that functionality will debut on the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028 with the help of a lidar sensor.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
But to get there, GM first will have to squeeze every possible lesson out of Super Cruise as it exists today. As of now, it is firmly a Level 2 ADAS system, meaning full driver supervision is still required at all times.
On certain premium models like this Blazer EV SS and the Cadillac Lyriq, Super Cruise comes as standard. It’s available as an option on many other GM EVs, like the Silverado EV, Equinox EV and Sierra EV, along with a slew of gas cars. On most vehicles, buyers must subscribe for around $40 per month or $400 annually after a trial period, which is usually three years.
As the company aims to improve Super Cruise beyond what it can do today, it will have to handle rain, snow, poor visibility and every other challenging road condition that separate a truly autonomous system from regular driver assistance system. So I decided to test where Super Cruise stands right now, specifically when conditions are less than perfect.
I did that on the 615-horsepower Chevy Blazer EV SS, driving it from New York City to Philadelphia and back for a roughly 200-mile highway round trip. I’ll admit to a bit of poor planning that day. I forgot to check the forecast before leaving my house. So what I had imagined as a scenic, sunny drive quickly turned into a stress test for the Blazer.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
Unlike Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems, which rely primarily on cameras and AI, Super Cruise uses a more traditional hardware and sensor stack, which includes high-definition maps combined with inputs from cameras, radar and GPS to make sense of the vehicle’s surroundings and make active driving decisions.
To be frank, I didn’t expect Super Cruise to work at all during the heavy downpour. GM advises against using the system in rain, poor road conditions, unclear lane markings, or slippery and adverse environments and you should take those recommendations absolutely seriously. But it surprised me in ways I didn’t expect it to.
The New Jersey Turnpike and the Delaware Expressway both have clearly marked signs everywhere, which is ideal for ADAS systems as long as the visibility remains good. Traffic wasn’t so bad that day, so I decided to give it a go.
Rear ADAS camera and parking camera on the 2026 Chevy Blazer EV SS.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
Engaging Super Cruise is simple. Press the small round icon on the steering wheel and the system will activate if you’re on an eligible road that’s mapped by GM and has clear lane markings. A green light bar then illuminates very prominently on the top of the steering wheel, accompanied by graphics on the gauge cluster.
At that point, you can take your hands off the wheel, keep your eyes on the road and stay ready to intervene if the light flashes red. What surprised me was how well Super Cruise handled moderate to heavy rain. As long as lane markings were visible to my eyes, they were visible to the car, too, and the system worked just fine. The moment those markings disappeared, Super Cruise disengaged instantly.
That behavior makes sense. The front ADAS camera is mounted high and centered behind the windshield, a position that’s well covered by the wipers. As long as the camera could “see” the lanes, Super Cruise confidently kept the Blazer EV centered, matched my set speed and smoothly reduced speed when the traffic bunched up ahead of me. It wasn’t perturbed by heavy crosswinds either, keeping the Blazer dead in the middle of the lane.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
It handled automatic lane changes, too, using blind-spot monitoring and the rear-facing ADAS camera to check surrounding traffic. Drivers can decline a lane change by nudging the wheel in the opposite direction or tapping the turn stalk the other way.
Yet the overall experience was far from perfect. When cars ahead of me kicked up heavy water spray, Super Cruise deactivated. Increasing the following distance to the maximum setting somewhat helped, but it exposed the system’s heavy reliance on lane markings.
Even if overall road visibility was acceptable to me, with cues such as the glow of taillights, silhouettes of other vehicles and just the general awareness of the surrounding traffic, Super Cruise would just tap out the moment it couldn’t lock onto a lane line. In these conditions, these moments are when today’s ADAS systems can’t truly replace a competent human.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
This is also what separates Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system from other ADAS rivals. FSD operates not just on highways but also in urban environments, handling complex traffic scenarios and offering point-to-point navigation tied directly to the vehicle’s maps. It is willing to take on more uncertainty than Super Cruise, for better and for worse.
It can continue functioning when lane markings fade, relying on curbs, shoulders, barriers and other environmental cues instead of just painted lines. And that software is now underpinning Tesla’s robotaxis, which are starting to roll out in the U.S., albeit with human safety monitors inside.
Super Cruise seems a long way from reaching that stage. It remains a highway-only system and when lane markings disappear, the car will scream at you to take over—and you absolutely should. But still, that limitation doesn’t make Super Cruise unimpressive. It just makes it honest.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
It does everything GM advertises it will and in this very test, it also exceeded those expectations by performing at the very limit of its capabilities. That honesty about its limitations is what makes me slightly optimistic about the Level 3 system that GM is planning to launch in just a couple of years, where you will be able to take your eyes off the road in certain conditions.
For now, if you’re setting out on a road trip and the weather gods refuse to cooperate, it’s unlikely that Super Cruise will suddenly be useless. It may not work when the visibility gets bad, but it can still handle meaningful stretches of the highway as long as you stay alert and ready to take over when asked.
Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
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