Motor Mouth
Working on your own car could be breaking the law.
In yet another lesson from the information industry, automakers are learning it is the software — not the hardware — that is the key to success in the digital age. He who controls the information, as Microsoft, Apple and Google have proven, controls the cash flow. What’s new, however, is that the latest battlefield in the information age isn’t to be found in your computer or even your cherished cellphone, but underneath the hood of your car.
Autoblog.com recently revealed that the Auto Alliance — one of the industry’s main lobbying arms — is trying to prevent owners, the DoIt-Yourselfers of backyard legend, from tinkering with their cars. By considering the car as a “mobile computing device” under the 1996 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), automakers are contending that allowing consumers and third parties to repair/alter the computational/information systems of their cars is not only unsafe, but violates their copyright protections. Essentially, the automakers are saying “we own the rights to the software, we don’t think you’re smart enough to fix it, so only we — or somebody we designate — should be allowed to work on your automobile.”
Ostensibly, the target is the traditional shade-tree mechanic, the automakers reasoning that modern automotive computer software is simply too complicated to allow amateurs to futz with. Steering, braking and even throttle inputs are too important to the common good, the Alliance of Global Automakers positing that allowing the open manipulations of computer code could pose serious safety concerns.
As seemingly logical as the automakers’ argument might be — who, after all, wants ham-handed Uncle Fester messing with the microchips controlling your airbags — many in the auto industry see this as just the OEMs latest ploy in trying to corner the auto repair market.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with Do-It-Yourselfers,” said Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, Canada’s leading industry analyst, noting that shade-tree repair is relatively inconsequential — less than 10% of the entire industry and almost none of it, in Canada at least, hardware or software related.
“The target, really, is the independent auto repair industry,” says DesRosiers. “In the United States, less than 25 per cent of all automotive repair is performed at an Original Equipment Service facility (namely a dealer), the vast majority of the work going to the aftermarket, namely chains like Walmart and traditional independent garages.” (Here in Canada, the number is about 38 per cent of all automotive service.)
That’s a profit centre the OEMs and their dealers would like to capitalize on, especially as the profit margins on the showroom floor dwindle. “Automakers have figured out that there is less money than ever in new-car sales,” says Andrew Ross, publisher of the repair trade journal Jobber News and AutoServiceWorld.com. “The real money is in repair.”
It’s an imbalance that is only likely to grow because, as DesRosiers notes, consumers are keeping their cars longer, therefore spending less (relatively) on new-car purchases and more on repairs. Making matters worse for the OEMs is that the longer someone keeps their car, the less likely they are to return to the dealer for service.
“Many older cars are now on their third or fourth owner who simply can’t afford the floor rate dealers charge,” notes DesRosiers. Indeed, while 80 to 90 per cent of all automotive service is performed at an OEM dealer during the first four years of ownership, that percentage quickly decreases after the warranty expires.
Fewer than 10 per cent of cars eight years old see the inside of a dealer’s service bay and that is, according to DesRosiers’ latest statistics, less than halfway through a modern automobile’s expected lifespan (the average car in Canada is now expected to last an incredible 20 years). As the OEM’s accountants have no doubt already figured out, that’s a lot of money to be leaving on the table.
For its part, the Auto Alliance would only say “automakers are committed to ensuring that dealers, independent repair professionals, and consumers will always have access to all needed information and tools to diagnose and repair vehicles.” But Ross says the Canadian Automotive Service Information Standard, hammered out in 2009 between automakers and the Automotive Industries Association of Canada, “can cost mechanics thousands of dollars to access and is far from complete.” Most, says Ross, just employ the classic “workarounds” they’ve always used to access the repair data they need.
DIYers, meanwhile, may find the cost of repair information even more onerous. What 10 years ago might have been a one-time fee of less than $100 for the complete service information for their specific car, may now be a $1,000 annual subscription for the entire model lineup, some manufacturers now refusing to allow enthusiasts to buy individual service manuals.
And the real motivation may not even be those highly prized ECUs themselves, but the information they contain. “Even though the auto repair market is highly profitable, it is mature,” explains Ross. “But the data all those computers collect is a new and, likely, huge profit centre.” Being able to control the data detailing where and when you drive could be particularly profitable, the local Timmy’s, for instance, willing to pay big bucks to have your car inform you that there’s a special on extra-large double-doubles as you drive to work.
Indeed, it’s not a stretch to conclude that monetizing their cars’ on-board data is the automakers’ real motivation for demanding all these restrictions. According to Autoblog, General Motors is already claiming that continuing the exemptions under the DMCA could deal a “serious, and potentially fatal, blow to the future of automotive telematics,” the company saying it might even remove certain features from its OnStar system.
“Follow the money,” admonishes every great small-screen sleuth. In this case, the automakers’ motive would seem to have little to do with the backyard mechanic they claim to be so concerned about. The real question is who is to be allowed to repair your car and, perhaps more importantly, who owns the information — cue Google-like profits — it produces. There’s a lot of money riding on the answer. At first glance, the concept that automakers know best and tinkerers should not be allowed to play with computer code beyond their expertise might seem logical, but it’s a red herring at best. The DIYers the automakers are railing against hardly ever reprogram the safetyrelated items in their cars. Virtually the entire aftermarket “re-flashing” industry is devoted to getting more power out of the engine, not disabling the anti-lock brakes. And what of systems that boost performance without altering the original source code? Modifying the fuel injection signal after it leaves the ECU means such systems are not altering the automaker’s original software. Besides, how can carmakers possibly claim to be faultless when giant General Motors couldn’t even recognize that some relatively simple ignition switches were wonky. Nor is the industry’s software faultless, Ross detailing many new cars, some barely five years old, “that have had to have their computers re-flashed five or six times to address drivability and emissions faults.” So much for OEM infallibility!