I wouldn't be surprised if that tie-in is related to a "self-drive" feature on the vehicle that has to connect those controls, and is presently being tested by Google and other companies. Even if the feature wasn't going to be present on all models (or makes, as I'm sure there's just one company at this point that supplies everyone with this sort of thing due to patents), maintaining several separate embedded controller versions can be expensive, so they'll consolidate it all into one to save on development and support costs. Regardless of your feelings on the link that I provided, the point still stands that it can be quite the issue, even if the vehicle were to be self-driving.