From ‘hands-free’ to ‘eyes-off’: how General Motors is simulating its way to autonomous driving

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — At the General Motors Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, in suburban Detroit, hundreds of volunteer, real-world drivers have hopped inside a Cadillac Lyriq electric vehicle or other popular GM models and experienced all sorts of things while in the car: regular roadway driving, driving up and down hills, construction, rain, nearby traffic and other scenarios.

But while the vehicle is real, the world that the drivers are experiencing is not. Instead, they’re inside a simulator; a 360-degree, immersive environment where their every eye movement, heart stress, sweating and other reactions are measured against countless driving tests. Here, GM is testing a human driver’s response in vehicles just as much as it’s testing the vehicle tech itself.

That simulation is how GM — and other automakers — are testing future iterations of their advanced driver assistan...