Is that true though? I know that Hyundai at least has demonstrated a true level 4 system in Korea. It hasn't made its way to any production vehicles yet, but I suspect that's partially because the regulatory regime is still up in the air. Part of the real risk with releasing something right now is that you'll end up with a system that is not compliant with whatever the regulations eventually require.

Then why don't manufacturer just use openpilot ? afaik its free and the code is in the github.

Liability maybe? The same reason why everything except for TACC with Tesla is considered beta and you have to consent to always be ready to intervene to use it.

I guess the trained models themselves are not free,

But George is selling it fir the same price to them as well, they just don’t want to rely on him.