GM unveils updates with safety tech at Detroit Auto Show after year of recalls

General Motors on Monday unveiled, at the North American International Auto Show, various updated product lines with new active and passive safety features for new vehicles.

Besieged GM CEO Mary Barra spent most of her year dealing with questions about safety recalls, but enthusiastically participated in the unveiling of the 2016 Chevrolet Volt, which was added active safety features such as lane keeping assist with lane departure warning, side blind zone alert with lane change alert, rear cross traffic alert, and forward collision alert.

The Volt comes standard with a rear-view camera, ten air bags with driver and front-passenger knee air bags included, as well as expanded use of high-strength steel. GM says there are more effective structural load paths in the frame, along with structural reinforcements.

The 2016 Volt allows drivers to travel 50 miles on a single charge before the combustion engine kicks in, much longer than the original 38 miles in the previous Volt model. "This is an area that we place high priority on, we continue to do so, and we're going to place all of General Motors' innovative thinking and expertise into it to make sure we lead." said Barra.

GM also debuted the 2016 Buick Cascada at Detroit Auto Show, a sedan with a feature of extensive safety. The car is equipped with rollover protection bars that deploy behind rear seats when the possibility of a rollover is detected. Like Chevrolet Volt, the Cascada also features a lane departure warning, a rear parking assist device, and a rear-view camera. Rainsense windshield wipers will also be installed in Cascada to make driving in the rain safer.

The Cascada will have a seven-inch-diagonal color touch screen with Text Message Alerts and Siri integration so that drivers can focus solely on the road instead of being distracted by their phones or GPS.

American automotive analysts say that Buick is rapidly becoming the poster-child brand for the "new" General Motors, but it's Chevrolet and Volt that Barra is most proud of.

"It's what the Chevrolet brand stands with finding new roads, making sure we're environmentally friendly, responsible, and creating solutions that customers are going to want," she said.

GM says Chevrolet Volt is expected to come into market in late 2015, and Buick Cascada in early 2016. Endi