General Motors’ joint venture with China’s SAIC on brownbag video sexTuesday introduced an Autopilot-style advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), which the company said would enable its Century model, a luxury multi-purpose vehicle, to handle highways. The Navigation on Pilot (NOP) software enables autopilot overtaking, lane switching, and on-ramp/off-ramp driving, making it the “first joint manufacturer” among peers to launch such technology through over-the-air updates in China, according to an announcement.
Developed locally by its Pan-Asia Automotive Technology Center in Shanghai, the Level 2 system still requires the driver to be in full control and relies on a high-definition map. Peer SAIC-Volkswagen in March launched its 2024 Tiguan L with ADAS sourced from Chinese drone maker DJI and featuring more safety-based functions such as collision avoidance. Chinese rivals such as Xpeng Motors and Li Auto are making ADAS technologies for more complex urban environments and without the dependence on precise geolocation information. SAIC-GM reported sales of around 225,600 cars for the first half of the year, an almost 50% plunge from a year earlier. [TechNode reporting, GM announcement, in Chinese]