[mikemoka]

I know I am walking upon a mined field here, but I think that, despite his hero status, a certain kind of insecurity is showing these days from him. I mean, if you are sure you have a good product would you argue to death with a journalist or will you answer him then let the public try and judge the product on his own when it comes out?

I mean, I don't think that if someone would have badly criticized the iPhone someone at Apple would have been deeply concerned, because they were certain that thousands of authors and thousands of users would have praised it soon thereafter, and a few bad opinions wouldn't have harmed it much.

[entropy_]

While I fully agree with your point -- This response rubs me the wrong way too -- when it comes to cars bad PR can be way more damaging than with phones.

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60_Minutes#Unintended_accelerat... (referenced by someone higher up in the thread). One TV show with a car that had been tampered with caused a massive amount of lost sales for Audi, to the point where they considered pulling out of the US market entirely. Sales didn't bounce back for a full 15 years.

I can definitely see why someone in the auto industry would be extremely touchy about things they think were written by journalists in bad faith.

[manaskarekar]

I agree about sensing that feeling too. But I think it stems more from emotional involvement in the product in addition to what is at stake for the company at this make or break stage.