What have search engines got to do with vehicle data reporting privacy? I suppose there must be some connection, but how is it relevant to this concern and article?

That said, developing, and operating a search engine is no small lift. Brave did it by acquiring/acquihiring another company. While I suppose that's in the scale of the Mozilla Foundation's budget, I suspect it would be a bad move for them.

Primarily, in terms of politics and partnerships, and maybe the motivation of some of their staff to remain gainfully employed, I expect they have fairly strong incentives to stay out of the search market.