If Tesla executes perfectly they might stand a chance. They don't have much margin of error though. One lost lawsuit because of an accident caused by a bug in their software, and they are out of business...
The trouble with just throwing the statistics around and saying "it's fewer deaths!" is that it has to be fewer deaths in comparable situations. A tesla having fewer deaths per mile in perfect driving conditions shouldn't be compared to a possibly-drunk person in possibly-awful weather. This isn't the media creating controversy, it's people expressing skepticism when a corporation's incentives are to let a couple people die, and trying to maintain a high bar.
On the other hand, if you think fault doesn't matter and it's just one life for another, then it essentially becomes the trolley problem, which doesn't have a clear answer either.
If you can go from 30000 to 1000 just by changing to good enough autonomous cars that's a change worth doing. Then you can look at improving it to 0 and encourage that process if not through insurance liability processes through regulations that require ongoing improvement in autonomous safety.