Cadillac has been slowly rolling out Super Cruise, its “hands-free” driving system since it first appeared in the CT6 in 2018. Buyers got three free years of Super Cruise, a period which is about to end for the early buyers. Cadillac has now said that it’ll cost up to $25 a month if they want to keep Super Cruisin’ after that.
The details, via Motor1:
Customers in the US will be able to purchase a standalone Super Cruise plan for $25 a month when the service expires for those 2018 model year owners. Customers that already subscribe to other select OnStar and GM Connected Services bundles can add Super Cruise for an additional $15 a month. Connectivity is required for the service to operate, providing the technology the precise map updates and GPS coordinates Super Cruise needs to offer the hands-free driving feature.
Owners that fail to subscribe to Super Cruise will not lose all of the system’s functionality, though. The car’s lane-centering, adaptive cruise control, and other on-board features will continue to function.
Now, I don’t think anyone who bought or leased a CT6 will have trouble affording an extra $25, though the numbers do add up quickly. That would be $300 a year, or $1,500 for five years, which isn’t a lot of money in the context of buying a car but is considering that originally it was thought that Super Cruise would be a feature of the CT6 for the life of the car. You know, like every other part of the car, especially because Super Cruise was a $2,500 option on the (departed) CT6 that required the $3,100 driver assistance package as well.
Which is what some CT6 owners might be thinking about when they get a message asking them for more money to keep Super Cruisin’, especially because, according to Roadshow, Cadillac only decided last year to make it a subscription service. To be clear: The subscription thing for car features is extremely bad.