In 2012, Massachusetts voters were the first to bring the concept into the modern era by requiring automakers to add a built-in port that would allow anyone with an inexpensive tool to access a car’s data. The law led to a nationwide agreement, under which automakers guaranteed independent repairers and owners that they would have access to the tools and software given to their own franchised dealers.
But since then the car business has moved online, and almost every new car today comes with a telematics system that collects data about its operation, such as how fast it’s moving, where it’s going, how hard the driver is braking, and if everything is OK. in the car works properly. This data can be transmitted wirelessly, and some automakers are no longer building the built-in port into their vehicles, arguing that they no longer need it.
Owners and repair shops worry that the auto industry will use such advancements to cut off access to the information needed to diagnose and repair vehicles, instead directing repair shops to their own franchised dealers. In Massachusetts, 75 percent of voters decided that the new technology, and the potential loopholes it created, called for a new law and passed the ballot measure approving the updated Right to Repair.
“Everything your car does — all the data it generates and all the features it has after you buy it — is yours,” said Nathan Proctor, head of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s Right to Repair campaign. , an interest group. “Car manufacturers should not bind you to their services.” He called the ongoing battle in Massachusetts “very frustrating.”
But the auto industry — and now the U.S. Department of Transportation — has said it believes giving wider access to car data is actually dangerous. In the 2020 lawsuit filed by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the industry argued that Massachusetts law required them to create an open data platform too quickly, creating security risks.
Josh Siegel, an assistant professor of engineering at Michigan State University who studies connected auto security, says the automakers may be right to some extent. Massachusetts law gave the industry about a year to build an open data platform, probably not enough time to create a secure system. “Open telemetry systems that get beat up can allow unauthorized access and control,” he says.
But according to the federal government’s current position, open systems aren’t just dangerous if they’re poorly built. It claims they’re inherently dangerous – and Siegel doesn’t think that’s true. He says it’s possible for anyone — right-to-repair advocates, vehicle safety and cybersecurity experts, manufacturers — to come together to build a data-sharing system. One standard, made for the entire US and not just one state, should be “designed with the public and manufacturers’ needs in mind and with care and attention to safety from the start,” he says.
Aside from the legal and policy squabbles, the conflict between the state, the auto industry, and the federal government has had strange practical consequences in Massachusetts. In 2021, Kia and Subaru decided to cut off access to their telematics systems to new car buyers residing in the state. The automakers said they had taken the step to avoid breaking the law: they argued that because the open data platform required by the law did not yet exist, the only way to comply was to restrict access to their telematics systems altogether.
As a result, Massachusetts car buyers investing in the latest and greatest will not have access to Subaru’s Starlink service, which includes roadside assistance and remote starting, or Kia Connect, which includes stolen vehicle recovery and remote climate control.
The situation has frustrated Subaru and Kia owners in the state and doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon. This week’s NHTSA letter warned automakers not to go the Subaru and Kia route and shut down their Massachusetts telematics systems, citing safety features that could “facilitate better emergency response in a vehicle accident.” But in a statement, Subaru spokesman Dominick Infante says the automaker is not changing its stance. “Compliance with the Massachusetts Data Law is impossible for any automaker,” he says. “Subaru continues its commitment to consumer choice when it comes to vehicle repair.”
A Kia spokesperson declined to comment, referring WIRED to its trade group, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which in turn declined to comment on pending lawsuits. Now everyone will wait for the Massachusetts judge to have the final say on the law approved by the state’s voters – and the future of auto repair in Massachusetts, the US and beyond.
