HAV Bill’s Underlying Impact on Data Ownership

Subscribe To Download This Insight

4Q 2017 | IN-4790

The House’s “Highly Automated Vehicle” legislation, named the SELF DRIVE (Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research in Vehicle Evolution) Act passed almost unanimously last month. The Senate Commerce Committee just unanimously passed the AV START Act, their own version, which now heads to the full Senate. Both acts address passenger vehicles that can assume complete control of driving in at least some conditions. However, labor unions such as the Teamsters as well as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) publicly resisted the addition of commercial vehicles due to the over 3 million U.S. commercial drivers that could be affected.

Registered users can unlock up to five pieces of premium content each month.

Log in or register to unlock this Insight.

 

Nationwide Automation and Security Laws Coming

NEWS


The House’s “Highly Automated Vehicle” legislation, named the SELF DRIVE (Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research in Vehicle Evolution) Act passed almost unanimously last month. The Senate Commerce Committee just unanimously passedthe AV START Act, their own version, which now heads to the full Senate. Both acts address passenger vehicles that can assume complete control of driving in at least some conditions. However, labor unions such as the Teamsters as well as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) publicly resisted the addition of commercial vehicles due to the over 3 million U.S. commercial drivers that could be affected.

Federal legislation has been needed to address the current patchwork of state specific laws and address future interstate travel. Under the House bill, no state would be permitted to regulate design or construction of self-driving or automated vehicles unless its laws are identical to Federal law. It would put responsibility for regulating the above firmly with the Federal government.

Within three years of passing, the HAV bill would allow original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to each sell up to 80K self-driving vehicles a year. The OEMs would need to disclose what data the cars are collecting about individuals and how it is used, as well as if consumers could opt out of data collection. The House and Senate will need to reconcile the two bills especially regarding cybersecurity and privacy. A potential law would be expected to debut over the next 18 months to 2 years.

My Car My Data?

IMPACT


Larger industry concerns have been identified regarding data ownership and access. This impacts not only drivers, but a wealth of value chain players from telematics providers to insurers to rental car agencies to repair companies and prognostics suppliers. The Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) for Confidentiality and Data Access will define the data, however, the seats for the committee have not yet been filled. 

Similar potential legislation is playing out in the E.U., in Brussels. The European Automobile Manufacturers Association’s(ACEA) findings call out cybersecurity fears and recommendations that the OEMs limit access to data from the on-board diagnostics (OBD) interface. The proposal suggests a cloud owned by the OEM or a third party to administer access rights through agreements with those companies wanting access. This would be “as a service” and include charges for the assessed market value of the data, which would lead to significant risks to the current competitive market dynamics.

Industry stakeholders created the Ad-Hoc Data Access Coalition, which includes the NAFA Fleet Management Association, as well as several notable car rental, leasing, repair, and insurance companies. The coalition wants to include an amendment to establish a Federal vehicle data access standard to maintain real-time access to vehicle data for vehicle owners and lessees until the FAC’s report is complete.

OEM’s Interests Propel

COMMENTARY


BMW is already in the process of moving towards a cloud-based solution that would eliminate industry access to the ODB port other than for diagnostics, which could potentially be a precursor to a full ban on port access, without compensation agreements as mentioned above, even as port safety, security, and standardization continues to evolve. Major implications include not only the pricing and privacy, but the true value of the data and the groups of data that will be marketed.  Additionally, the data is not expected to be normalized or uniform from the OEMs. Downstream that would require further use of complex algorithms by data acquirers, who would then need to pass the costs from both their work and the OEM’s fees onto the consumers of the data. 

The role of an automotive OEM as a service provider puts them at increasing odds with the growing ecosystem of players dependent on big data and analytics. Regardless of legislation in both the U.S. and the E.U., a broad base of value chain players including telematics service providers (TSPs), rental car agencies, repair, and insurance providers as well as the OEMs themselves need to align on access, security, and privacy in free market economies and rapidly evolving technologies.

Services

Companies Mentioned