It’s one thing to talk about autonomous vehicles and quite another to actually get behind the wheel and let the car do the driving. We started by summoning the car, a 2018 Tesla Model 3. 

Yes, with a few taps of the phone the car can come to you without a driver in the front seat.

"It reads the double yellow line on the left and the dotted line on the right," said a work colleague who is a Tesla owner and was brave enough to let me get behind the wheel. 

A series of eight external cameras around the car pick up not only the road markings, but the other cars around us. It also uses radar and 12 ultrasonic sensors that talk to the car and onboard computer. 

I was definitely slow at first, but once we got on the freeway, I engaged the autopilot by pushing down the cruise stalk twice. That’s when it really got interesting.  

The car steered itself, but every so often, you have to apply pressure on the steering wheel so the car knows you’re still there and alert. Tesla quickly made that change to its autopilot rules in 2015 after a video went viral showing a driver shooting video from the backseat with nobody upfront.

Currently, you still have to manually brake for stop signs and red lights because the car will only stop if it senses a car in front of you.  While you can’t play games, you can still browse the web while driving. I'm not saying it’s a good idea, but with your hands free, it’s possible.

Tesla isn’t the only brand pushing self-driving tech forward.  Google already has more than 50 self-driving cars on the road under the brand Waymo. They’re being tested in the Bay Area and select cities across the country.

Some experts say autonomous vehicles are expected to reduce crashes by 90 percent. Of course, as more companies look to add driverless tech, they’ll face concerns about driver privacy and security against hackers.

When we got back to Spectrum, there was still one more thing left to do...auto park, which also requires a good deal of trust.