It looks like President Joe Biden has been running roughshod over the voters of
the state of Massachusetts, that's right.
Last week, the Biden administration told auto manufacturers in that state they
could ignore a ballot measure passed in 2020 by voters there to allow car owners
access to their own data from their cars.
Their own data from their cars so
that they could go to a mechanic of their choosing and
not necessarily a mechanic corresponding to the brand of their car, right.
All right, so this is a little maybe convoluted, but
what does it have to do with?
Well, it's actually pretty important has a lot to do with consumer rights.
So back in 2012, Massachusetts passed this right to repair law that
required automakers to build this onboard port that allowed all the car's
data to be stored there and that anyone could access with a cheap tool basically.
Since then, though, of course, all cars are like computerized.
I know some of us love it.
I actually seem to hate it.
Everything has this telematic system, collects data on the car, speed, location,
whether the car parts are working, and then it's transmitted wirelessly,
which is why some automakers decided to stop building the onboard port.
That's really convoluted, but
basically it's difficult to access the information of your car.
So what did Massachusetts voters do?
They re upped their law and in 2020 passes ballot measure that updates
the right to repair and says, yeah, you've got to use open standards for
diagnostic data so car owners and independent car shops can access it.
75% of the people voted yes, but the graphic one,
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said no,
actually, you could just ignore it.
So they said it's preempted by the Federal Safety Act because of concerns that
malicious actors could utilize the law's open access standards to remotely modify
vehicle systems.
So, in other words, it's gonna open us up to cybersecurity threats.
And coincidentally, that was the same reason that the automakers who
lobied hard against that measure that did pass,
same reason they gave on why they shouldn't pass that ballot measure.
Last thing you guys need to know, Ford and General Motors,
they have been among the largest donors to the opposition campaigns in Massachusetts,
and they were donors to Biden's inaugural committee.
Remember how inaugurations are somehow cash cows?
General Motors donated 500,000, Ford, 250,000.
John.
>> I mean, look,
it's a reminder that these are massive companies with a lot of influence.
We saw that in Florida with the bill that DeSantis passed in terms of making sure
the dealers can continue to sell cars,
the cars can't be sold directly from the manufacturers, and
that they're not just influencing Republicans but Democrats as well.
Look, I don't know how much evidence there is to their point
about possibly gaining access through hacking or whatever, but
I do think that a lot of people are incredibly frustrated by the high price
of owning a car, maybe they can amend it.
They can do another version that allows something like that I don't know.
>> Well, I feel like he's moving in the opposite direction of his
campaign promises, especially when it comes to renewables, reusing,
getting your car fixed affordably is part of that.
I think it's an incredible show of consumer force that Massachusetts
voters did this.
And it's also an incredible show of heavy handed overreach by the Biden
administration to tell auto manufacturers they could ignore this rule.
That's effectively what the National Transportation Board told them,
that they could just ignore that ruling.
Excuse me. The Highway Traffic Safety Administration
said that.
And I wanna just go to this because graphic 6 this is a person who lives
in Massachusetts says, look, the data generated by my car should belong to me.
If it is impossible to provide secure access to me, the car owner, to the data
transmitted by my car, then the car is insecure and automakers need to fix that.
If access to the data puts my life at risk, regulators should never have
permitted these systems to be on the road in the first place.
And I feel like we're in a moment, this is something that I feel like Republicans,
Democrats could both agree on,
that the automaker should not be the only ones in control of your car's data.
And think of who they could sell that to, give that to.
If it's law enforcement, which is maybe the most like that's sort of like wishful
thinking, that's the best case scenario.
But what about insurance companies?
All different ways that your data could be sold or given away.
And so I just want to name that senator Elizabeth Warren and
Ed Markey from Massachusetts spoke out about this.
They had a letter pushing back on Biden.
Said NHTSA's decision to give automakers a green light to ignore
state law appears to be in favor of big auto.
Yeah, appears it is.
To undermine the will of Massachusetts voters and
the Biden administration's competition policy.
And raises questions about both the decision process and
the substance of decision by NHTSA's leadership.
We're asking NHTSA to explain its rationale for harmful actions and
respect Massachusetts law by reversing course.
So they're openly calling it out.
And the thing that I was gonna mention also is that it feels like it's moving in
the opposite direction.
It's doubling down on cars when Biden's whole thing is, hey,
let's move to Greener Energy.
And actually, to be honest with you, he's doubling down on new cars, right.
So it's, hey, just buy a new car instead of if people cannot affordably
fix the cars that they have because they are designed the way that Mac products and
Apple products are designed to only be serviced by one dealer,
then that effectively creates even more waste.
>> Yeah, 100%.
I'm glad that you brought up the Apple thing because the same sort of thing is
done by cell phone manufacturers.
Thankfully, a lot of these products that are sold internationally run afoul of
the fact that in Europe, corporations don't always get exactly what they want.
And so sometimes they do have to change their products because of regulations
outside of the United States.
But yeah, look, the voting machine manufacturers use this sort of thing,
these trade secrets protections, rather than actually securing the devices.
If we're even assuming that what they're saying is true,
they instead have these broad protections from any access whatsoever.
And I just think, look, how much goodwill could you get from the voters if you
gave them this, like, at the national level.
And also at the same time did some regulations to make sure that
when they bring their car to a third party repair place, there's some sort of
standardization of how much they can actually charge you for different things?
Like this is a terrible process to engage in from top to bottom, but
it doesn't have to be.
It just sort of is because it's a status quo and
because a lot of money is changing hands.
>> And it's also something that Biden won't get credit for
from the right because he's basically arguing in favor of corporations,
he wouldn't get credit for it.
And you better hope they don't find this story because if anything,
they'd call him out on it and try and defend the working man and
use it against him, which they hell, they could and should and we should.
But anyway, it's depressing.
And I'm also kind of excited by the fact that these kinds of ballot
measures even exist.
And good on Massachusetts.