Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has filed a motion in the Massachusetts District Court to reopen evidence in a lawsuit by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), a trade group representing virtually all US vehicle manufacturers.
The case is expected to decide if it is possible for OEMs to comply with both US federal law and Section 3 of the Massachusetts Data Access Law, which requires OEMs with telematics system to provide an “interoperable, standardised and open access platform across all of the manufacturer’s makes and models” independent repairers could use, beginning with the 2022 model year.
In July 2021, AAI sued the state, arguing the law would require OEMs to introduce cybersecurity risks to their vehicles, and that the 2022 model year time frame makes designing, testing and implementing meaningful countermeasures impossible.
Healey said Subaru dealers told her office they have disabled a telematics system, known as StarLink, to comply with the new law. She claimed it was ordered by Subaru of New England (SNE), which indicated in documents provided that the decision had been made by Subaru of America (SOA).
She also presented expert opinion that deactivating telematics allowed OEMs to temporarily comply with the law. However, in her motion seeking to reopen evidence, Healey said AAI disputed OEMs were capable of doing so only on vehicles sold in Massachusetts.
Healey’s office claims it gathered evidence showing that Subaru deactivated telematics which were not available when the trial concluded in July because the 2022 models were not yet on sale.
Healey said her office had been contacted by a Massachusetts resident who had bought a 2022 Subaru Outback from a North Reading dealership and found that the StarLink telematics system had been disabled.
“He stated that he had been advised by the dealer that Subaru could not legally turn on StarLink due to the RTR law,” Healey wrote in her motion. Her office then contacted 20 of the state’s 22 authorised Subaru dealers, all of which confirmed that “StarLink could not be enabled for MY22 Subaru vehicles sold to customers in Massachusetts”.
One dealer, Stateline Subaru, provided a 2 June 2021 memorandum from the Executive Vice President of SNE stating that “to comply with the new Data Law [sic], SOA has determined that it is no longer able to offer STARLINK Safety & Security subscriptions to Massachusetts residents beginning with model year 2022.” The memorandum states that the policy “will enable SOA and, in turn, SNE to distribute model year 2022 vehicles for sale or lease in Massachusetts.”