Comment by baranul

The issue is that autofree is not a 100% solution by itself, in all circumstances. Thus it relies on the existing GC, in situations that it's not. The V developers have already hinted at using alternatives to the GC, for that remaining percentage, so memory safety without the GC is on the table for them.

Based on what I've read and hints dropped, can see them adding some type of additional DFA and borrow checker, somewhat like D, to be combined with autofree. Awareness of this possibility, might be why V's competitors have been so overly focused on them. As we are talking about combining it to an easier to use language, with cleaner syntax.