(The Center Square) — After losing at the ballot box, automakers are suing to overturn Maine’s voter-approved “right to repair” law, claiming they can’t comply with a requirement to turn over diagnostic data to repair shops and vehicle owners.
Question 4, which was soundly approved by voters in the November 2023 elections, allows auto owners and repair shops to access “telematics” data from vehicles. A costly ballot fight pitted the nation’s automakers against small repair shops backed by the retail parts industry. The law, approved by 84% of the voters, went into effect last month.
But automakers are making a last-ditch effort to block the new law’s requirements from being enforced.
A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Friday by Alliance for Automotive Innovation alleges that the new “data law” is unenforceable because it runs afoul of federal law and the Constitution. The group asks the federal court to block the law.
The law requires Maine to create an independent entity under the Attorney General’s office to enforce the law and ensure that automakers are allowed access to vehicle data. However, lawyers for the alliance said the “independent entity” has not been created.
“Vehicle manufacturers cannot even begin to attempt to comply with requirements that have not yet been established by an entity that does not yet exist,” lawyers for the alliance wrote in the 29-page complaint. “Thus, the threatened enforcement of the Data Law is unconstitutional and unlawful, and/or the data law itself is unconstitutionally vague.”
Massachusetts voters approved a similar law in 2020, but the coalition of auto manufacturers filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the referendum. The outcome of that legal challenge is pending before a federal judge.
Maine’s right to repair law requires automakers to make this telematic data “directly accessible” to the vehicle owner through a mobile-based application. The law also allows owners to authorize independent repair shops to access the data. The new law allows vehicle owners and independent repair shops to sue if data access is denied.
However, the automaker’s group says “right to repair” is a misleading term, saying Mainers can have their car repaired by any shop they choose and that most diagnostic data is already available to repair shops. They want the judge to declare that the law is unenforceable by the attorney general’s office.
“This is an example of putting the cart before the horse,” the group said in a statement. “Before automakers can comply, the law requires the attorney general to first establish an ‘independent entity’ to securely administer access to vehicle data. The independent entity hasn’t been established. That’s not in dispute. Compliance with the law right now is not possible.”
