I got curious. It’s at least partially the government regulation thing. They’ve been working on standards that get inforced soon around data privacy and updates to software. So they can roll their own Chinese version of the software with in-country servers, privacy compliance, surveillance compliance, etc. or pay Baidu/Tencent.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chines-mandatory-standards-vehicle-cybersecurity-icv-data-振强-焦-qupec
Ok now we know why their alignment team quit.