Elon Musk has warned that critics of self-driving cars are "killing people" as he announced that Tesla is building a fleet of fully autonomous cars.

Anything that dissuades the public from trusting autonomous cars, such as reports about crashes in the news, is facilitating road deaths by preventing the adoption of the technology, which is safer than human drivers, Musk said during a call with reporters.

He said it is "disturbing" that the media covers the vast majority of self-driving car road accidents, while neglecting to discuss the "1.2 million people that die every year in manual crashes".

"If, in writing some article that’s negative, you effectively dissuade people from using an autonomous vehicle, you’re killing people," he said.