We Should All Be Wary Of Automakers' Right-To-Repair Solution

A new agreement on Right-To-Repair guidelines between automakers and thousands of small independent auto shops might seem like a win for consumer rights activists, but there’s plenty from last week’s announcement to give any car owner pause.

The “memorandum of understanding” released last week is between three industry organizations representing automakers and thousands of repair shops (though it left out the largest trade organization representing independent auto repair shops). Automakers promise to allow independent repair shops access to proprietary tools and information necessary to service their vehicles.

The fight for the right of car owners to repair vehicles themselves or take their property to independent repair shops has become fraught over the last few years. And like almost all of the problems with modern cars, the hesitance can be traced back to data; who owns it, who stores it, and who has access to it, according to Wired:

In the agreement, the automakers commit to giving independent car repair shops access to the data, tools, and information necessary to diagnose and repair vehicles—the data, tools, and information provided to the automakers’ own dealership networks. “Competition is alive and well in the auto repair industry,” the letter said.

Right-to-repair advocates—who contend that consumers should be able to fix the products they buy—aren’t so sure. They say the agreement doesn’t give car owners full and unfettered control of the streams of data generated by the latest cars’ cameras and other sensors, which log data on location, speed, acceleration, and how a vehicle’s hardware and software are performing.

The advocates worry the new agreement gives automakers and automaker-associated repairers room to squeeze out smaller, independent shops and at-home tinkerers in the future, making it more difficult for car owners to find places to quickly and affordably fix their cars. And they say there are no enforcement mechanisms to guarantee automakers follow through on their promises.

“In terms of how automakers behave and whether vehicle owners or repair shops will get access to information—I don’t think this will change anything,” says Paul Roberts, the founder of SecuRepairs.org, an organization of IT and cyber professionals advocating for the right to repair.

There are plenty of people this agreement leaves out, including the actual owners of the cars. If you want to wrench on your modern car in your garage the way god intended, sorry, you don’t have that right. Automakers want to keep such repairs to their dealerships as service is where most dealerships make most of their money. Data such as speed, camera footage and sensor logs from owners own cars would still be off limits.

Massachusetts is enforcing a 2020 ballot measure that solidified residents right to data about their car, even as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tells automakers to ignore the law. A federal Right-To-Repair law is currently winding its way through the U.S. legislature as well.