Carmakers and technology firms should both be held accountable in the event a driverless car crashes into someone, the CEO of Valeo told CNBC on Thursday.
Speaking at Viva Tech, Jacques Aschenbroich, chairman and chief executive officer of auto parts maker Valeo, said that any incident in which a driverless car is found to cause a collision should have ramifications for the automaker first and foremost.
"The carmaker will have to be at the center… afterwards if we are responsible of some failure in our algorithm then it will come back to us." Aschenbroich said.
"Having a car which is delivered by your carmaker, it has to take a part of the liability. All of the suppliers, the partners that will help (the carmaker) to develop the car will be together with the carmaker liable. It cannot be the driver anymore because you have no driver," he added.
The nature of driverless cars, which Valeo's CEO predicted would be an imminent reality rather than a distant aim, has stirred a hotly-contested debate as to who should be held accountable in the event of a collision.
The coming age of driverless cars has typically centered on Silicon Valley highfliers like Tesla, Uber and Google. The latter found most road traffic collisions occurred on the road because of human error and not a system malfunction.
Therefore, Google's driverless cars had been designed without letting humans take control of the wheel.
Meantime, Valeo's CEO said while its driverless cars had been tested on various tours with 99 percent of the journeys completed without human assistance, its aim would now be to attempt trickier routes and ensure the whole journey is completed by the automated driver.
