Everyone wants to build self-driving cars. Traditional automakers are pitted up against Silicon Valley-upstarts, while meanwhile, independent researchers are throwing their hats in the ring. We're headed towards an autonomous car-filled future at full speed, and this seems to pose an existential threat to driving enthusiasts.

That's the focus of this episode of /DRIVE on NBC Sports, a show produced by the same people that made an amazing documentary on hypercars, and starring various friends of the website. Alex Roy and Mike Spinelli explore the current state of autonomous cars, starting with the world's first autonomous car track day.

At the track day, Roy rides along with legendary hacker George Hotz, the founder of comma.ai. Hotz's company is a startup that, until recently, promised to build a $999 aftermarket kit for semi-autonomy. Hotz and other self-driving car startups may be small, but they're still doing important and impressive work.

In the next segment, Roy and Spinelli test out two of the most advanced semi-autonomous cars on the market, the Tesla Model S and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class. Using a loop around San Francisco dubbed the Autono-ring, the merits and drawbacks of Tesla's Autopilot and Mercedes' Drive Pilot are compared head-to-head. Both systems are advanced, but there's quite a difference in the philosophies behind them.

Finally, Spinelli visits Ford to test out a highly advanced self-driving Ford Fusion prototype. Without any human intervention, Ford's car is able to navigate its way around the company's Dearborn campus without issue. The tech displayed isn't yet ready for prime time, but it's arguably more complete than most people think.

What's most interesting about this show is not the tech on display here, but the fact that it's presented by enthusiasts. You'd think Roy and Spinelli would be hesitant to embrace technology that threatens a large part of their identities as car enthusiasts, but on the contrary, autonomy is too good not to embrace.

"The best thing about all the autonomous stuff is that it takes all the parts of driving you hate, and owns them," says Spinelli. "You don't have to do them anymore."

This episode of /DRIVE on NBC Sports airs Friday November 4th at 3:30 p.m. ET. If you're interested, or skeptical of our self-driving future, it's a must-see.

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