Applus fails its own car inspection test

No A-plus for Applus.

Instead, we’d give that company — under contract with the Registry of Motor Vehicles to perform car inspections in this state — a failing grade.

The RMV announced that Shrewsbury-based Applus Technologies Inc.’s vehicleinspection breakdown will continue through at least Friday, further exacerbating a monumental traffic jam that began last week, when Applus’ software was hijacked by a massive malware attack.

We don’t exactly know how many uninspected vehicles that amounts to, but according to Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data, Massachusetts has more than 2 million registered vehicles on the road.

Divide that by 12, and you arrive at potentially 167,000 cars on average that must renew that sticker every month.

And that doesn’t include all those other motorists who skipped inspections over the last year due to coronavirus concerns.

This downtime also cuts into inspection providers’ profit margins, since they receive the bulk of that $35 sticker fee, while they’re still saddled with inspection-related expenses.

We’re all used to long waits at Registry offices, but this computer glitch now ensures equally long lines at your local service station, once everything’s up and running again.

Until then, the best Applus can do for those approximately 1,700 inspection locations in Massachusetts is provide a digital Band-aid — software updates on flash drives that guide operators through a reboot to protect their machines.

It seems obvious by the Registry’s statement that exasperation with this continued impasse has traveled beyond individual motorists.

“The RMV shares the frustrations and disappointment with the tremendous inconvenience Applus’s outage is causing and recognizes the significant impacts on customers and business owners across the Commonwealth,” Acting Registrar of Motor Vehicles Colleen Ogilvie said. “The RMV remains committed to its efforts to ensure Applus makes Massachusetts a priority in quickly and safely returning the inspection program to operation.”

We can understand the RMV’S unease after hearing Applus’ initial nonplussed reaction to this mass Internet crash.

Perhaps that’s because Applus is in the midst of a fiveyear, $30 million contract with MASSDOT that doesn’t expire until September 2022, with a three-year extension of that pact in the works.

However, it appears that deal is on hold pending an acceptable resolution of this current quagmire, which could exact a financial penalty due to Applus’ inability to live up to its end of the bargain.

After taking credit last week for belatedly detecting and terminating the malware attack, Applus didn’t give any guidance on when service might be restored, only that it will likely take some time to return its inspection apparatus to a functional state.

“Unfortunately, incidents such as this are fairly common, and no one is immune,” Applus CEO Darrin Greene said.

“We apologize for any inconvenience this incident may cause. We know our customers and many vehicle owners rely on our technology, and we are committed to restoring normal operations as quickly as possible.”

In the interim, the Registry has asked law enforcement to show discretion in citing drivers with expired inspection stickers, since the fault lies probably not with them, but with a company that views a breakdown of this magnitude as “fairly common.”

Vehicles with expired inspection stickers from

March and vehicles purchased or registered on or after March 23 have until April 30 to obtain an inspection.

And drivers who recently received an inspection rejection and are in the 60-day free retest window will be given one extra day for each day Applus’ system remains unavailable.

That window opens wider every day.

When — or if — this situation is finally rectified, we’d urge the RMV and MASSDOT to reconsider rewarding this company with a three-year extension.

Instead, Applus should get a rejection sticker for its own incompetence.