He's defensive because the news media is talking about a product that can't be operated in the way the news media is describing. It's not physically possible. The car can't be operated with no one in the driver's seat. Autopilot shuts off automatically.
Yeah in that case they had to put a weight on the seat, keep the seat buckled, and also keep applying force to the wheel. At some point you just have to give up as the threat model becomes too big.
