The “Right to Repair” movement in agriculture is a popular cause with farmers, for various good and questionable reasons. I have expressed my doubts about the wisdom of multiple states creating multiple Right to Repair rules, but it looks like we may be watching the wrong battle.
Ag manufacturers have not helped themselves by missing agreed deadlines for tools and information availability for engines and machines. The chip shortage has made this skirmish even more difficult. But while we’re complaining about tractor repair, the larger problem may be with our pickups. This confrontation between customers and manufacturers turns out to be less about repair since about 70% of all repairs are currently made by independent mechanics. Instead, the fight is about telematics – the data stream between your car to the dealer. It’s the communication that emails when a tire is low, for instance.
This data stream is huge and less about oil pressure and more about advertising dollars. It’s amazing what companies can infer from a flow of numbers detailing car conditions, location, and other seemingly innocuous facts about what your car is doing. In fact, the value of the telematic data from cars is in the tens of billions of dollars. When Massachusetts voters passed a seemingly straightforward bill requiring all owners access to this data stream, some manufacturers balked, claiming it would be illegal under privacy laws as well as technically unworkable. The result was Massachusetts Subaru and Kia owners lost remote start capability and tire warnings, and other features as the companies stopped that telematic information flow.
This warning shot could be a hint not only about how serious manufacturers are about this issue, but how it could spread to farm equipment as well. Not to mention all those things like refrigerators and TVs – the over-hyped Internet of Things. We may also find out how this enormous flow of data back and forth can make our businesses and everyday lives more vulnerable.
Dealing with this threat in state legislatures will result in a bewildering clash of laws unable to keep pace with telematic technology. Right to repair could be swallowed up by this growing dispute and become a small part of much wider regulation.
