Automakers Try To Bullshit Their Way Past ‘Right To Repair’ Standoff In Massachusetts

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the fix-your-own-shit dept

Giant automakers continue to try and scuttle a popular Massachusetts law aimed at making repairing your own cars easier and more affordable. And they’re once again using some familiar, misleading tactics to do it.

In late 2020, Massachusetts lawmakers (with overwhelming public support) passed an expansion of the state’s “right to repair” law, requiring that all new vehicles be accessible via a standardized, transparent platform that allows owners and third-party repair shops to access vehicle data via a mobile device.

The goal: reduce repair monopolies, and make it cheaper and easier to get your vehicle repaired (with the added bonus of less environmental waste).

Automakers immediately got to work trying to scare the press, public, and legislators away from the improvements by running ads claiming the law would be a boon to sexual predators. They also filed suit under the banner of the inaccurately named Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which stalled the bill from taking effect.

Making matters worse, automakers then got some help last June by The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which took some time off from not holding Tesla accountable for the growing pile of corpses caused by undercooked and clearly misrepresented self-driving tech, to support the auto-industry’s effort to scuttle the law (and spread misleading claims the law would cause public harm).

As corporations looking to secure repair monopolies often do (see: John Deere’s repeated empty promises on making tractor repair more affordable), automakers in Massachusetts have also, in recent months, been striking meaningless, voluntary deals with local automotive repair trade groups in a bid to pretend that a state law isn’t necessary. But activists are…not impressed:

Earlier this month, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the carmakers trade group, said it had reached an understanding with the Automotive Service Association and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists to resolve the issue. But another major auto repair trade group, the Auto Care Association, has rejected the deal, calling it “a thinly veiled attempt to confuse lawmakers and drivers.”

Hickey, agreed. “We don’t think it means anything,” said Hickey, whose group led the campaign to pass the Massachusetts Data Access Law in 2020. “If you read the language, it says we’ll only give you telematic information if it’s absolutely necessary.”

Basically, companies see that right to repair legislation is making progress in their state, so they’ll strike a completely voluntary agreement with a few associations promising to make it slightly easier to get repair manuals. Of course, the promises routinely wind up not being worth anything, given they’re just non-binding voluntary props being used to stall state regulations, not fix a problem they don’t want fixed.

In this case, the big fight is over access to vehicle telematic systems by independent repair shops, since the very obvious goal is to force car-owners into costly and increasingly consolidated dealership repair shops. This is all buried under claims that opening access to this data will cause a vast parade of privacy and security horribles, which the FTC and others have found to be bullshit.

For now, Massachusetts’ law is tied up by lobbying and legal fisticuffs. And while there are federal bills on the table, the stuff automakers are doing in Massachusetts to scuttle an extremely popular bill should give you some insight into the work that broad coalitions of companies keen on monopolizing repair are firing up on the federal level.

Again, right to repair protections enjoy massive, bipartisan public support. And this kind of regulatory and legislative corruption at the hands of self-serving corporate giants is, as always, why we can’t have nice things.

Filed Under: automakers, legislation, massachusetts, nhtsa, right to repair, right to repair law