Federal officials tell automakers not to comply with Mass. right-to-repair law

Federal officials sent a letter to 22 automakers this week telling them that they should not comply with the Massachusetts Data Access Law, better known as the right-to-repair law that voters approved in 2020. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that the law conflicts with, and therefore is preempted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Act. The NHTSA is effectively telling automakers to ignore the Massachusetts law. 

“While NHTSA has stressed that it is important for consumers to continue to have the ability tonchoose where to have their vehicles serviced and repaired, consumers must be afforded choice in a manner that does not pose an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety,” NHTSA said in its letter. 

The law divided the auto industry, with historic levels of spending being dedicated to the ballot measure. It requires automakers selling vehicles in Massachusetts to provide customers and independent repair shops with access to “telematics,” information that is detected by a car and then transmitted wirelessly elsewhere. This data can be used to diagnose problems with a vehicle. 

Most newer cars automatically transmit this information to automakers. Under the new law, automakers are required to tell customers what kind of data is being collected by a car’s telematics system and provide them with a way to access that information. That information must also be accessible in independent shops. 

Major automakers opposed the law, arguing that it would increase the likelihood of cyberattacks. NHTSA officials have shared similar concerns since 2020. 

After voters approved the law, a coalition of car manufacturers filed a lawsuit to block it. They argued that it could allow criminals to get access to valuable information, that only the federal government could enact a law like this, and that they were not given enough time to comply.

Although that case has yet to be resolved, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Cambell announced that she would begin enforcing the law earlier this month. 

“The people of Massachusetts deserve the benefit of the law they approved more than two years ago,” Campbell said, according to a court document obtained by The Boston Globe.

But in its recent letter, dated June 13, the NHTSA said that open remote access to vehicle telematics could prove disastrous. Under this law, open access would entail the “ability to send commands,” according to the letter. This could allow someone to remotely manipulate a car’s steering, acceleration, or braking system, the agency said. 

“A malicious actor here or abroad could utilize such open access to remotely command vehicles to operate dangerously, including attacking multiple vehicles concurrently. Vehicle crashes, injuries, or deaths are foreseeable outcomes of such a situation,” the NHTSA said in its letter. 

On Twitter, the Massachusetts Right to Repair Coalition called the letter “irresponsible” and a “delay tactic.”

“On behalf of two million voters and thousands of independent auto repair shops across Massachusetts, we are outraged by the unsolicited, unwarranted, and counterproductive letter from NHTSA,” the coalition wrote. 

In a statement to the Globe, Massachusetts First Assistant Attorney General Pat Moore also criticized the NHTSA letter.

“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declined the opportunity to express, and prove, its concerns at trial, choosing to weigh in only by letter two years later,” Moore told the paper. “We look forward to NHTSA’s explanation of precisely what has changed, and we will then evaluate our next steps.”

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