It was pretty shocking for the five Polestar drivers in the United States when the automaker announced it was leaving the market. Now a much bigger name could be next, and this one builds cars in Alabama. Mercedes-Benz. Yes, really. First, two different rules doing two different things This is where most coverage gets muddled, so let’s separate them. The first is the Connected Vehicle Rule, a Commerce Department regulation already in force. It restricts cars with connectivity or automated driving tech tied to China or Russia, and it works case by case: automakers apply, Commerce says yes or no. That’s the one that got Polestar shown the door in June, denied authorization from the 2027 model year. Polestar shrugged it off, since 94% of its first-quarter sales happened outside America anyway. The absurd part is that Volvo, owned by the same Chinese parent, was approved weeks earlier. And the Polestar 3 rolls off the same South Carolina assembly line as the fully approved Volvo EX90. The second is the Connected Vehicle Security Act, a bill that would write all this into law and go much further. It cleared the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously on July 22, sponsored by Senators Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, two states that build a lot of cars. Starting January 2027, it would bar the import or sale of connected vehicles from companies tied to China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. And it adds a hard number the existing rule doesn’t have: any automaker more than 15% owned by Chinese entities is out. For software and hardware suppliers, the threshold is 25%. That 15% is where Mercedes falls in. Two shareholders, twenty percent, one very big problem Here’s the math nobody at Mercedes wants to explain again. BAIC, a Chinese state-owned