WATERTOWN, MASS., FEB. 22, 2024…..Almost three and a half years after Massachusetts voters approved a law aimed at ensuring car owners and independent repair shops can access vehicle data needed for maintenance, state and federal officials are frustrated by a lack of progress on the “right to repair.”
Voters supported a 2020 ballot question to give independent mechanics access to wireless vehicle data to repair cars by a three-to-one-margin. Just about 75 percent of Massachusetts voters checked “yes’ on the 2020 ballot measure. It updated a 2013 “right to repair” law, which ensured that independent auto repair facilities had access to the same vehicle diagnostic data as manufacturers and dealerships.
Under the newly-approved law, the owner of a vehicle should have been allowed to give independent repair shops access to the mechanical data collected and transmitted wirelessly by computers onboard cars and trucks. The systems, known as telematics, were not covered by the 2013 law, but have become integral in most new model cars.
Supporters say the “right to repair” encourages healthy competition, bringing down prices for consumers by giving them the choice of where they want to bring their vehicles for maintenance, and leveling the playing field for small businesses.
But more than three years after voters approved the vehicle repair data law, legal battles and safety concerns continue to delay its implementation.
“To tell a client that I’m unable to fix their car — it’s not fun. It’s not enjoyable. The client doesn’t like to hear it. They wasted their time, they came here to have to leave, not have their issue resolved and go somewhere else,” said Bob Lane, president of Direct Tire and Auto Service in Watertown.
Lane joined U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Federal Trade Commission Lina Khan, right to repair advocate Tommy Hickey, and Parker Smith of mechanic advisor company Steer for a roundtable at his Watertown shop Thursday to discuss the lack of progress around the right to repair law.
Almost immediately after the 2020 ballot question was approved, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a national trade group backed by carmakers, brought the issue to court. It argued that opening access to vehicle’s data could allow bad actors to manipulate cars remotely.
“Our team found that more often than not, there was really nothing behind these claims and that oftentimes they were grossly inflated,” Khan said. “They were using scare tactics to try to deprive independent shops from getting access to this data.”
Lane said the rhetoric about privacy risks was “insulting.”
“They say there’s a security risk for a technician to be working on a car, a very passionate worker here,” he said, gesturing to the independent vehicle repair shop. “They go around the corner and work with a local Honda dealer and now they’re an upstanding citizen?”
State and federal regulators appeared to have made a breakthrough this summer to move forward with implementation of the law, but supporters on Thursday said it wasn’t enough with the ongoing legal battle still playing out in federal court.
In June 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned that the 2020 law might clash with federal law — only to reverse that position two months later, saying the measure “may successfully be implemented” with some tweaks.
The compromise centered on wireless access to a vehicle’s systems under the law. Manufacturers could comply with the law by providing wireless access “from within close physical distance to the vehicle,” but not across a greater distance, using Bluetooth or another system, Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office said.
Federal regulators agreed that this practice would comply with the state law without triggering the same cybersecurity concerns that NHTSA previously warned could run afoul of existing federal safety requirements.
But on Thursday, Hickey — who led the coalition that ran the right to repair campaign — said he and his colleagues have tried to meet with the NHTSA to implement the law “to no avail.”
“We continue to pursue that avenue to educate them on ways this can be implemented, and we look forward to our day with them to make sure that they know that this is what folks voted for,” Hickey said.
He added that a truly “level playing field” would allow local shops to have long-range access to the data — not just short range Bluetooth like the NHTSA agreed to — as dealerships have access to cellular connection.
“Not everyone that lives in Watertown is in Watertown. So the idea that you have to be in Watertown to share your information with Bob Lane, and a dealer can reach out to you when you’re in the Berkshires — it’s wrong. That’s not a level playing field,” Hickey said.
Khan was in Massachusetts on Thursday to meet with local auto repair owners and see how the lack of implementation of the right to repair law was impacting small businesses and consumers, she said.
“It’s worth billions of dollars to consumers in money they will save if the consumer has the opportunity to shop before they get repairs,” Warren said.
