The battle on Capitol Hill to make it easier to fix your car

Every time I was Get behind the wheel, your car is collecting data about you. Where you go, how fast you drive, how hard your brakes are, and even how much you weigh.

All this data is not usually available to the car owner. Instead, they are surrounded by secure restrictions that prevent anyone other than the manufacturer or authorized technicians from accessing the information. Automakers could use the same digital portals to prevent owners from making repairs or modifications, such as replacing their brake pads, without paying a premium for the manufacturer’s service.

The Repair Act, part of pending legislation discussed at a U.S. House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, would mandate that some of that collected data be shared with vehicle owners, specifically parts that might be useful for making repairs.

“Automakers are trying to use this kind of marketing advantage of having exclusive access to this data to get you to go to the dealer where they know why this information is coming up,” says Nathan Proctor, senior director of the Right to Repair Campaign at PIRG. “The fix would actually be faster, cheaper and more convenient if this information were more widely distributed, but that is not the case.”

Today, the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee held a (deep breath) hearing titled “Examining Legislative Options to Enhance Motor Vehicle Safety, Ensure Consumer Choice and Affordability, and Strengthen American Motor Vehicles.” The session covered potential legislation around improving road safety, regulating self-driving vehicles, and helping people protect their catalytic converters from theft.

The hearing took on a contentious tone when the discussion turned to the reform law. The House bill, introduced in early 2025 by Reps. Neil Dunn of Florida and Mary Glusenkamp Perez of Washington, calls for automakers to give vehicle owners and third-party repair shops access to telemetry, or the ability to access all the data collected by modern vehicles. This law was supported by organizations representing automobile suppliers as well as car care shops.

Bill Hanvey, CEO of the Auto Care Association, who has long called on automakers to share vehicle owner data, testified at the hearing to say that the threat to owners’ data has increased over the past decade.

“The need for a reform law is critical and real,” Hanvey said at the hearing, describing today’s vehicles as essentially computers on wheels that produce data that manufacturers then lock away to prevent consumers from accessing it. “Make no mistake about it, automakers unilaterally control the data, not the car owner. It may be your car, but currently it’s the manufacturer’s data that should do what you choose.”

The reform law was opposed by auto manufacturers and car dealers, who cited concerns about the use of their intellectual property rights by third parties. They say they’ve done enough to make their data and tools available, and if you need your car repaired, it’s not hard to find someone authorized to peek into its digital mind.

“Car owners should be able to get their cars repaired anywhere they want,” Hillary Cain, senior vice president of policy at the auto industry group Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in testimony during the hearing. “The good news is that automakers already offer independent repairs with all the information, instructions, tools and codes needed to properly and safely repair a vehicle.”

Automakers ultimately support a comprehensive federal right-to-repair law, Cain says, albeit one that protects a company’s intellectual property and “does not force automakers to provide aftermarket parts manufacturers or auto parts retailers with data that is not necessary to diagnose or repair a vehicle.”