1987 Cadillac Allante on 2040-cars

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GM recalling another 2.7 million vehicles in five separate campaigns

The recalls keep rolling in from General Motors, evidently keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of the ignition-switch debacle and clean house. This time they're all coming at once, with five separate recalls announced together covering approximately 2.7 million vehicles.
The largest of the five actions involves over 2.4 million units of the previous-generation Chevrolet Malibu and Malibu Maxx, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura in order to fix brake light wiring harness, which have been found to be susceptible to corrosion. The recall is separate from the 56k Aura sedans which GM recently recalled over faulty shift cables, not to mention the previous massive recall of 1.3 million vehicles - some of them the same models - but appears to have resulted from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation that started with the G6 almost a year ago.
The second-largest campaign involves the 2014 Chevy Malibu, specifically those fitted with GM's 2.5-liter engine and stop/start system, approximately 140,000 examples of which has been found to have problematic brakes. The issue does not appear to be connected to the recall of 8k Malibu and Buick LaCrosse sedans (also involving brake woes) which we reported upon last week. Four crashes have been reported in such models, but GM admits it's not yet clear if the problem was a contributing factor in the accidents.

Genesis wins J.D. Power Tech Experience Study for third straight time

The results are out for the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study, which "focuses on the user experience with advanced vehicle technology as it first comes to market and is an early measure of problems encountered by vehicle owners." Its measurement metric is problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), same as with the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS). The takeaway this year isn't that owners aren't using advanced technologies, as was the case with the 2022 study, or that they're having more problems with them overall. It's that owners of battery-electric vehicles are having more problems with advanced tech than owners of ICE-powered vehicles. According to the study, 17 of 21 features that can be had on both propulsion types — such as remote parking assistance and gesture controls — get lower satisfaction ratings by owners of BEVs, in some cases nearly 20 PP100.  The survey organization says this tracks with what its found in the IQS, where total vehicle problems were "46% higher among BEVs (excluding Tesla) than ICE vehicles and satisfaction is lower among owners of BEVs across nine of 10 APEAL categories than among owners of ICE vehicles." Findings regarding biometric measurements are among those that go against the overall study findings. Whether a fingerprint reader or an eye tracker, car owners in general said "they do not consider them to be useful." In terms of ease-of-use and satisfaction, plug-and-charge capability on EVs gets good marks. This allows EV owners to plug into a public charger and have payment taken care of automatically; the vehicle communicates with any charging station compatible with an automaker's plug-and-play system, so the vehicle can automatically submit a bill for the charging session to a central owner account with no further action needed at the station. Survey respondents noted a mere 6 PP100 and an 88.9% satisfaction.    Among manufacturers, repeat winners took the top prizes. Genesis earned the highest rank for innovation overall and among premium brands for the third straight year. Hyundai not only won the tech innovation banner for mass market brands for the fourth straight year, ahead of Kia, GMC, Ram and Subaru, Hyundai finished in second in the overall standings. On that overall chart, the top five are Genesis, Hyundai, Cadillac, Lexus and BMW. On the premium chart, Genesis is followed by Cadillac, Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the top five. It wasn't close from the first to the rest, though.

Super Cruise’s failsafes

Even though Super Cruise is not a fully autonomous system, it incorporates redundancies like those used in aircraft to ensure failsafe operation. Before taking off on a 700-mile, 11-hour test drive of the system — and putting my life in its hands without my hands on the wheel — I sat down with Daryl Wilson, lead development engineer for Super Cruise, to get a deep dive into the system and its critical safety backups. Autoblog: First, what makes Super Cruise different from similar systems? Wilson: The key differentiator for Super Cruise is hand-free driving. It's an industry first in that respect. Our competitors require the driver at minimum to place their hands on the wheel with some frequency to ensure that the car knows that the driver is there. We don't. Two key technologies allow us to do this. One is our Driver Attention System, which is our methodology for making sure the driver is engaged with the vehicle and engaged with the road. This is a driver assist system, not a fully autonomous system. So it requires driver engagement. We use an infrared camera that constantly monitors the driver's face to determine the direction they're looking. We're looking for the driver to be what we call on-road — not on the center stack, not to left or right or down. That's all done by the tracking of the face. We also track that the eyes are open. It's infrared because at night you need to illuminate the face and you can't be shining a light into the driver's face. Then we have our lidar mapping that provides a foundation for control and redundancy to ensure safe performance. Autoblog: How does the mapping act as a redundant feature? Wilson: This system is only for use on divided, controlled access highways. What I mean by a divided highway is something more than a painted line between you and oncoming traffic. Whether that's a grassy area in between the lanes or a concrete barrier, anything that separates you from oncoming traffic. That's the divided highway part. The controlled access part is entrance ramps and exit ramps. Not with roads that cross at grade, with traffic crossing at the same level. To do that we geofenced these roads to ensure that operation is only allowed in these conditions. We don't just recommend you use it there; we ensure that you only use it there.