The Cadillac Escalade SUV will not be offered with hands-free highway driving after all. Cadillac added the much-hyped feature to GM’s flagship SUV for the 2021 model year. But General Motors has temporarily removed it due to a global shortage of microchips.
Why Remove it Now?
Throughout 2021, the automotive industry has been hobbled by a worldwide shortage of microchips. Today’s cars routinely use as many as 150 of the tiny processors. They’re central to everything from valve timing to calculating turn-by-turn directions.
Automakers scaled back their orders of microchips as the COVID-19 pandemic slowed car sales last year. But consumers worldwide went on a personal electronics buying spree as they bought new devices to enable them to work and attend school from home. When the economic recovery began, and automakers sought to order more chips, chipmakers were too busy to accommodate them.
Building new chip factories is a long process. Analysts believe the global supply may not catch up to automakers’ demands until mid-2022 at the earliest.
GM Has Been Trimming Many Features
Automakers have shuttered factories and slowed production of less-popular models to preserve their available chip supply for more popular cars. But the shortage has impacted production of even the most popular vehicles.
GM has continued producing its best-selling large trucks and SUVs, in part, by stripping out less-popular features. The company has removed HD Radio, fuel-saving stop-start systems, and mpg-stretching cylinder deactivation to keep chips available for more popular features.
Super Cruise is Almost Entirely Off the Market Right Now
GM has marketed Super Cruise heavily. The company plans to offer it on 22 vehicles by 2023.
But, at the moment, it’s nearly impossible to find. The company has stopped producing the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, both of which offered Super Cruise, as it deals with a large-scale battery recall on those cars.
That left Cadillac products – the Escalade and CT4 and CT5 sedans — as the only vehicles currently for sale that offer Super Cruise. While Cadillac has built some 2021 CT4 and CT5 models with the feature, it plans on making it more widely available on the sedans early next year.
Super Cruise Will Be Back
Cadillac does plan to bring Super Cruise back. A spokesperson tells us, “Super Cruise is an important feature for the Cadillac Escalade program. Although it’s temporarily unavailable at the start of regular production due to the industry-wide shortage of semiconductors, we’re confident in our team’s ability to find creative solutions to mitigate the supply chain situation and resume offering the feature for our customers as soon as possible.”
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