The company will offer its “super cruise” system, which will allow a driver to ride in a car with hands off the steering wheel on a freeway with proper lane markings, on a yet-to-be named new Cadillac vehicle. Cadillac officials have said they intend to launch by 2016 a large sedan to compete with rivals such as the Mercedes S-Class.

GM officials declined to say how much the “super cruise” feature will cost. A package of optional driver-assistance features currently sells on Cadillac models for about $3,000.

Officials with the auto maker said the super-cruise system will be designed to
require that drivers remain attentive and ready to retake control of the vehicle. They also stressed the distinction between this “automated” driving feature and the vision of a fully automated, “driverless” car promoted by Silicon Valley’s Google Inc. 

Separately, GM said it plans to start installing vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems in 2017 model Cadillac CTS sedans beginning in 2016, a likely first for such
technology in the North American market.

GM issued Sunday’s announcements as technology companies and established auto makers wrestle to define the future of the car. In Detroit this week, hundreds of companies looking to profit from a projected boom in connected and autonomous vehicle technology will promote their wares.

Industry executives say the primary goal of automated driving and connected vehicle technology is to reduce the estimated 80% of accidents that occur because of drivers’ mistakes. But the technologies also offer opportunities to companies that sell mapping software, vision sensors and services that depend on locating consumers, which is why technology companies including Google and mobility-service startups are jockeying
for position in the market.

The message from GM and other auto makers will be that connected-vehicle technology and automated driving systems offer significant promise for reducing
accidents, but that promise is further into the future than investors and Silicon Valley competitors might realize. “We are continuing to move forward with evolutionary steps,” said GM Chief Technology Officer Jon Lauckner. “If we could just get to the point that we have cars that don’t crash, we’d have massive benefits to society. We aren’t waiting for a driverless car to do all of this.”

GM’s decision to push ahead with vehicle-to-vehicle technology and automated highway cruising comes after months of controversy over its decade-long failure to recall vehicles with a potentially deadly safety defect. Chief Executive Mary Barra has responded to that crisis by vowing that GM will make vehicle safety central to the company’s business and by pushing to position the auto maker as a pioneer in safety technology.

“Let’s strive to build cars and trucks that don’t crash,” Ms. Barra said Sunday, as she helped open the transportation-technology conference in Detroit. “To me these aren’t noble causes. They are imperatives.”

Auto makers are also facing pressure from Washington. The U.S. Department of
Transportation last month said it is considering adopting a rule by 2016 requiring vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems in the future. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and the acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, David Friedman, said in an interview Friday that they want to encourage auto makers to offer more advanced safety systems.

“We are very bullish on the technology that is emerging in the auto industry,” Mr. Foxx said. Mr. Friedman said auto makers don’t have to wait for specific new regulations to offer technology such as supercruise. “It’s common to bring new technology well before we regulate them,” Mr. Friedman said.

Still, auto makers are wary of offering systems that could encourage drivers to believe that a car is fully driving itself, allowing them the freedom to disengage and text, nap or read. That could open up a new frontier of liability risk for an industry that already faces a torrent of litigation.

With GM’s super-cruise system, “the driver will be expected to pay attention” and the car will be designed to prompt the driver to stay attentive, said John Capp, director of GM’s global safety strategy and vehicle programs.

Auto makers are proceeding with advanced safety technology despite regulatory uncertainty and the potential for consumers to balk at the cost of the systems.

Toyota Motor Co.  officials said last week they plan to offer an array of
crash-avoidance technology across all of the company’s Toyota and Lexus
models by 2017, including automatic braking systems currently offered
mainly on the luxury Lexus brand.

Daimler AG  is offering “Stop and Go Pilot” on its new Mercedes-Benz C-Class
sedan being built in Alabama. The system allows the car to brake,
accelerate and remain in its lane without human input in speeds under 16
miles per hour.

Volkswagen‘s Audi brand has recently demonstrated a hands-free, automated
cruise-control system that can pilot a car in traffic up to about 40 mph. “Consumers are expecting more and more out of the vehicle to help keep them safe,” said Mike VanNieuwkuyk, executive director, global automotive, at market researcher J.D. Power and Associates.

The efforts to make vehicles more intelligent are running in parallel to
efforts by technology companies to mine profit from applying big-data
analysis to the problems of congested highways in the world’s largest
cities.

International Business Machines Corp. is expected to announce Monday that it is joining with the city of São Paulo, Brazil, to open a facility that would collect and analyze traffic data on roughly 4,000 miles of roadway around the city to help
officials better manage the flow of vehicles.

GM says it plans to join Ford Motor Co., the Michigan Department of Transportation and the University of Michigan to develop vehicle-to-infrastructure systems along 120 miles of Michigan roadway around Detroit, including a congested stretch of highway that links GM’s vehicle proving grounds in the city’s western suburbs to the company’s main engineering center in Warren, Mich.

Vehicle-to-infrastructure systems will gather information from vehicles on the road, and use that knowledge to warn motorists of congestion or an accident ahead.

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