Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

"I visited a GM dealership this week and the salesperson told me Super Cruise was not enabled for test drives."

Seems like a) the salesperson might not know his vehicles and perhaps it just wasn't a Super Cruise enabled vehicle (meaning, it wasn't added-on to that specific vehicle). b) the actual Super-Cruise module was broken in that vehicle, and that was his excuse c) he didn't know how or wasn't comfortable with telling you how to enable it. (some people are still quite afraid of giving full control over to computers)

I have tested numerous vehicles with Super Cruise; I quite enjoyed it.

I could be wrong, but unless it's a new GM rule, afaik, and with my understanding of how dealerships work (as far as the ones I've visited), dealerships try to avoid messing with the vehicle programming as much as they can. It's rather sad, as aside from the manufactures, dealerships have the most tools and access to the vehicles programming, but rarely-if-ever stray from the service manual.

Custom programming kind of is a market for that reason.

Living in a state with a very large automotive industry, there are a lot of people who have the tools + knowledge that offer custom programming services like: Programming the key fob that if one was to hold the unlock-door button for 5 seconds, the driver side window opens. And if the lock button is pressed once, then held for 5 seconds, all the windows are rolled up. Enabling a bunch of different video codecs/formats and enabling video-playback while the car is in motion if the passenger seat detects something siting there, etc, etc...




The vehicle was equipped for Super Cruise. The feature is tied to a subscription account, and GM/the dealership do not provide subscriptions for showroom cars. After I wrote my comment, the dealership contacted me to say they had set up a demo subscription with GM for the vehicle if I wanted another test drive.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: