I think it's different when the brand started out as a car company. As grim as it sounds, the public is aware and mostly unconcerned with the idea that vehicles made by the Ford Motor Company are sometimes involved in accidents that kill people.

I don't think that awareness is built in to every consumer brand.

I think more specifically, traditional automaker brands are boring and they garner little public discussion or attention.

Tesla I think is a good example of this -- some have a bad image of Tesla, which is probably in part to their propensity to attract media attention and public hype. When someone puts a Ford Escape on cruise control and crashes, nobody hears about it. If Apple released a car, it would have a ridiculous amount of hype, and ever darn scratch someone put on one would be front page news.