Your Next GM Might Drive Itself

GM launches supervised highway testing in California and Michigan, targeting eyes-off driving in the 2028 Cadillac Escalade IQ

25 Mar 2026

Self-driving technology is heading for the family driveway. General Motors has launched supervised on-road testing of its latest AI-powered driving systems on highways in California and Michigan, marking the next phase of a program aimed at something more ambitious than a robotaxi fleet: putting autonomous capability inside vehicles already parked in millions of American driveways.

The 2028 Cadillac Escalade IQ is the clearest signal of that intent. GM has confirmed it will be the first production vehicle to offer true eyes-off driving, allowing the driver to fully relinquish control under defined conditions. That is not a concept car promise. It is a production roadmap.

The data behind the push is substantial. More than 200 development vehicles are now operating in live traffic, each staffed by a trained safety driver. Data-collection vehicles have already logged over one million miles across 34 states, and nearly 700,000 GM vehicles running the Super Cruise hands-free system have together accumulated more than 800 million real-world miles across North America. That dataset feeds directly into the AI stack powering the next generation of GM's autonomy program. Simulation tools capable of modeling roughly 100 years of driving in a single day extend the pipeline further still.

The new road testing program targets the gap between simulation and reality. Safety drivers and onboard engineers capture data from conditions no simulation fully replicates: sudden road changes, reduced visibility, unpredictable traffic. Every edge case goes back into a system that improves with each mile.

GM's path has not been clean. A 2023 incident involving its Cruise unit in San Francisco forced a strategic reset, ending commercial robotaxi operations and narrowing the company's focus onto personal vehicle autonomy. That narrowed focus is now bearing results.

By scaling autonomous technology across a full production lineup rather than a dedicated fleet, GM is positioned to spread development costs in ways smaller operators cannot match. The Escalade IQ marks the opening milestone. As testing accelerates, eyes-off capability across a broader range of GM vehicles shifts from ambition to schedule.