How the Three Major Self-Driving Systems Stack Up

GM Super Cruise featured on a Cadillac Image: Cadillac

It seems every car maker is experimenting with advanced driver safety assistance systems — the long proper term for self-driving car features. Journalist Michael Wayland at CNBC
took a ride around Detroit in the three big names in the space — General Motors, Ford and Tesla — to find out who is ahead of the curve on self-driving development.

First, let’s meet our players: GM’s Super Cruise has been driving circles around the competition for years now. It’s so good that GM’s self-driving taxi division Cruise is currently picking up fares in certain parts of San Francisco, though these truly self-driving cars — some of the only such vehicles on the road — still experience plenty of problems when navigating the city. Super Cruise is also facing an investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for stalling and causing fender benders with hard braking.

Ford’s ADAS suite — the adorably named BlueCruise — isn’t quite as advanced, but the Blue Oval is dedicated to the technology’s development. The company is being more cautious in its self-driving development, but it is dedicated to the technology. Ford is currently in the middle of building an autonomous driving center in the heart of Detroit at the fabled (and formerly derelict) Michigan Central Station. And then there’s Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability Beta which is neither fully self-driving nor allows you to ride along on autopilot—despite repeated promises from Elon Musk. Tesla, however, did it first (sorta) so it’s lumped in to CNBC’s test.

How do these three titans of automotive technology measure up? You’ll have to head to CNBC to find out, but here’s a hint: Tesla does not take the gold ring. We already knew Teslas can’t really take on Detroit’s nightmare roads, but owners of Teslas with FSD Beta have recently complained that the system is getting worse, not better.