On Wednesday and Thursday, General Motors laid out its plan for the coming years to its investors. The company wants "a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion," said Chair and CEO Mary Barra, explaining that GM's investment in electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology has given it an early start.

GM revealed that a new electric Silverado truck will be formally unveiled at CES in 2022, and a $30,000 Chevrolet electric crossover is also in development. Both of these models, as well as electric Buicks, GMCs, Hummer EVs, and Cadillacs, will use GM's new family of Ultium batteries and Ultium Drive motors.

Some or all of those vehicles will be equipped with GM's Super Cruise hands-free driver-assistance system, but the company soon plans to deploy an even more capable hands-free driver-assistance system. Called Ultra Cruise, it will eventually allow for "hands-free driving in 95 percent of all driving scenarios," GM says.

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Unlike Super Cruise, which has a tightly controlled operational design domain that allows it to operate only on geofenced, restricted-access highways, Ultra Cruise will "eventually" work on every paved road in the US and Canada, according to the company. However, at first, the service will only be enabled on about 2 million miles (3.2 million km) of paved roads. For context, Super Cruise will operate on about 200,000 miles (321,869 km) of roads.

Ultra Cruise will use a mix of cameras, radar, and lidar to create a 360-degree view of the world around the vehicle. The lidar sensor will be mounted behind the windshield to allow it to stay clean. (The optical camera that enables lane-keeping assistance on current cars is also found behind the windshield.)

"We believe that the combination of different sensors, or sensor fusion, leads to the most robust hands-free driver-assistance system for our customers," said Doug Parks, GM executive vice president of Global Product Development, Purchasing, and Supply Chain.

GM says that Ultra Cruise will be able to handle navigation routes, including left and right turns. It will make automatic and on-demand lane changes and will react to and obey traffic signals and traffic signs. It will also be able to park itself in residential driveways.

Ultra Cruise will debut in an as-yet-unnamed Cadillac in 2023.