Elon Musk Wants Tesla To Be Rewarded For People 'Saved' By Autopilot

Tesla may be paving the way for autonomous electric vehicles in the auto industry, but that still comes with criticism over the technology's failures, Francis Agustin reported for BusinessInsider.

Photo Insert: Autopilot engaged in Model X

Elon Musk, recently named Time magazine's 2021 Person of the Year, sat down with Edward Felsenthal, Time's editor in chief and CEO, to talk about his work, including increased scrutiny over accidents caused by the company's self-driving technology.

"There's something somebody said to me at the beginning of when we were pursuing autonomy: 'Even if you save 90% of the lives, the 10% that you don't save are going to sue you,'" Musk told Time. He added that he saw a month-to-month improvement in Tesla's self-driving capabilities.

"I think it's one of those things where you're not going to get rewarded necessarily for the lives that you save, but you will definitely be blamed for lives that you don't save."

Musk's comments come as Tesla continues to face legal problems over its autonomous-driving technology, which has been linked to 12 accidents since 2018.

Some Tesla drivers are suing over fatal crashes, while others are seeking legal action against the company over, they said, its misrepresentation and use of deceptive marketing for its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving services. In an interview this week with the Financial Times — which also selected Musk as its 2021 Person of the Year — Musk said he believed he hadn't misled or risked the safety of Tesla owners with self-driving technology. Musk developed electric cars using a US federal loan of $465 million.

Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that in 2015 Musk berated a Tesla manager who proposed implementing a system to monitor for Autopilot malfunctions during the development of the program. The system would have included a computer chip and additional hardware as safeguards, but Musk said it would slow the Autopilot's development progress, the Times reported.

In August, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) began investigating 765,000 Tesla vehicles produced since 2014 after Full Self-Driving software caused 11 accidents involving first-responder vehicles, which killed one person and injured 17 others.

Letters sent to Tesla in September showed that the NHTSA asked for more information about its nondisclosure agreements with vehicle owners. It also asked Tesla to recall vehicles if a software update was required to fix a safety defect. Tesla updated Autopilot shortly after the investigation started in an attempt to address the issues.

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