GM patented a camera that watches drag-strip lights and launches the car itself

General Motors holds a newly issued U.S. patent for a system in which cameras watch a drag strip’s starting lights and the car launches itself, with no driver foot on the pedals. U.S. patent 12,780,203 was granted on Nov. 3, according to Motor1. GM has not said it plans to build the feature into any vehicle. The starting lights in question are the Christmas tree used at drag strips, a vertical column of lights that counts down to green.

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The inventors are Trevor S. Varney and Timothy Demetrio, and the assignee is GM Global Technology Operations. The application was filed on Jan. 3, 2025 and published on July 9, 2026 before the grant, and the filing names no vehicle, model year or production timeline. A published application is not a grant, and the distinction matters here: the Patent Gazette entry and the B2 kind code on the grant record show the claims were allowed and the patent issued.

Claim 1: cameras, a lighting tree and a stored pattern

The USPTO Patent Gazette entry for the grant carries claim 1. A vehicle’s cameras capture images of a race track’s lighting tree, a processor detects the light pattern and matches it against stored patterns and start times, and the vehicle automatically starts moving at the start time it determines.

The earlier publication, US20260192802A1 on Google Patents, explains the timing logic in detail. In Sportsman mode, one amber lights at a time from the top, about 500 milliseconds each, and green follows after the third. In Pro mode, all three ambers burn together for about 400 milliseconds before green. Because the Pro sequence gives the cameras less to read, the patent says an internal clock is essential there.

Across both modes, the driver and car have roughly 400 to 2,000 milliseconds to finish staging, depending on tree settings. The system begins propulsion torque at the expected green time minus a delay, then releases the brake about 10 milliseconds later, which is how the car can move the instant the light changes. Conventional launch control, Automotive Addicts notes, requires the driver to hold the brake and throttle and then release the brake at the right moment; this system would handle both functions.

Brake, torque and throttle without the driver’s foot

Brian Potter’s report for Motor1 says the system holds brake pressure and stages torque after the driver releases the pedals, controlling braking, torque and throttle through the start. His summary: the car does the holding and the timing, not the driver’s foot. Motor1 credits Road & Track with the original reporting and quotes that outlet as eager to see how close the system could come to cutting a perfect light, if GM builds it.

Justin Hughes of Jalopnik, in his Nov. 8 column on the patent, describes the sequence from the cockpit. The cameras recognize the tree and prompt the driver to arm launch control. The driver presses gas and brake together, then lifts both feet, and the car begins its launch before the green so it moves exactly on green without leaving early.

Hughes called automatic drag-strip launch a fine technological achievement and then said he would leave it switched off and drop the clutch himself, since the pursuit of perfection matters more to him than a perfect result. His column, headed by the idea that AI is coming for drag racers’ jobs, is an opinion piece, but it matches Motor1 on the basics: cameras read the tree, existing launch control does the rest, and the driver does not touch the pedals once the sequence is armed.

Gaps in the filing: lighting, tracks and rules

Automotive Addicts, in its Nov. 5 piece on the grant, notes that interior cameras may confirm the driver is paying attention before a launch is allowed, and that the software accounts for the short delay between commanding acceleration and the car moving. It speculates about a Corvette or Cadillac V-Series application, but says GM has announced no specific vehicle.

Motor1 points out gaps in the paper. Motor1 also describes the two formats the system distinguishes: on the Pro Tree all three ambers light at once and green follows 0.4 seconds later, while on the Sportsman Tree the ambers light in sequence, spaced half a second apart, before the green. The filing does not describe how the camera tells the two light formats apart in poor lighting or at unfamiliar tracks. The header photo on Motor1 shows a Corvette ZR1X, though the patent does not tie the idea to any model.

The unresolved question is practical: whether a sanctioning body would let a car start itself on a timed light. Neither the patent text nor the coverage read for this article addresses racing rules, and GM has said nothing on the subject in any of the reporting. The window the filing describes, roughly 400 to 2,000 milliseconds of staging time with a brake release about 10 milliseconds after torque begins, is short enough that any rule on pre-staged launches would have to be written in terms of those numbers. For now the record is one granted patent, two inventors and a launch sequence that begins torque a fraction of a second ahead of the green.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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