Automatic Braking is a set of General Motors active safety technologies that automatically apply the vehicle’s brakes to help reduce a collision’s severity or to avoid a crash. Automatic Braking is comprised of two individual features: Front Automatic Braking and Rear Automatic Braking.
Front Automatic Braking
Front Automatic Braking helps a driver avoid a forward crash or reduce the severity of crashing into a vehicle in front of it, whether it is moving or has come to a stop.
The system automatically applies brakes in whatever intensity required, such as moderately hard or hard emergency braking, when the vehicle is in the Forward/Drive gear, if the driver has not applied the brakes and the system detects a collision to be imminent. The feature may even help avoid the collision “at very low speeds”, according to GM. Immediately before or at the time that automatic braking is initiated, Front Automatic Braking delivers the following alerts when a collision is imminent:
- A flashing red windshield alert (Collision Alert), and
- 5 seat pulses on both sides of the Safety Alert Seat or 8 high-pitched beeps
Depending on the vehicle, the system uses the following technologies:
- Long/mid-range radar + Forward-facing camera + Short range radar
- Long/mid-range radar + Forward-facing camera
- Long/mid-range radar only
- Forward-facing camera only
Rear Automatic Braking
Rear Automatic Braking helps the driver avoid a crash or to mitigate the impact into objects directly behind their vehicle.
The system provides alerts and automatically applies hard, emergency braking when the vehicle is in the Reverse gear and traveling 0.5 and 20 mph. Rear Automatic Braking is capable of issuing the following alerts:
- When a potential object threat is first detected, a “Backing Warning” System alert may precede rear automatic braking by issuing 2 seat pulses on both sides of the Safety Alert Seat or a single low-pitched rear beep
- When an imminent crash threat is detected, the system delivers seat pulses on both sides of the Safety Alert Seat or low-pitched rear beeps
The system uses the following technologies:
- Rear Park Assist ultrasonic sensors and
- 1 or 2 short-range radars placed behind the rear bumper
If the vehicle is brought to a stop using the Rear Automatic Braking system, then the driver should press the brake pedal to release automatic braking. If this does not take place, then the vehicle will set the Electric Parking Brake. It is advised that the driver checks the Rear Vision Camera screen before firmly pressing the accelerator or releasing the Electric Parking Brake.
GM engineers state that Rear Automatic Braking is an emergency technology, and therefore should occur rarely and should not be used intentionally when in Reverse.
The feature can be enabled or disabled using the Park Assist hard toggle. The switch has an LED indicator; a lit indicator denotes that the feature is ON.
