Data, Diagnostics, and the Digital Divide in Auto Repair

Stacey Miller: 1:49

in order for the aftermarket, in order to take advantage of these opportunities, really is. I mean, in my mind it's a great goldmine for us because we continue to service the ICE vehicles and now they're seeing more technology in these vehicles and it continues to position our industry as this resilient industry, no matter kind of what's going on in the world. So really important to keep yourself prepared for the future. I need to ask you.

So we said we talked about software, divine vehicles. Just heard that ados so I can strive for assistance itself um, advanced telematics, remote diagnostics we kind of touched on that and how you know, right to repair has a tie to all of this technology and how it's so important. But I'm not sure that people think about the implications of right to repair in a technological frame, because we need right to repair for electric vehicles, we need it to in order to repair ados and we. It positions us for the future with all these opportunities too. So it's kind of like oh, range within, you, don't get any of this stuff, right?

right, no, we have to have the data, and, and something that we did early on and a lot of people aren't aware of this is that, um, we, we pushed for and we didn't get a lot pushed back. We just had to explain why it was unfortunate, and that was to get obd2 ports on electric vehicles. Initially, when teslas came out, they had ports in it. Then that they went away and really the only reason that they were on there before is for accessories to plug in to get down. They weren't actually communicating data.

But now there is a CARB requirement from the California Air and Air Service Board that requires OV2 ports on electric vehicles and this is for yeah and so what we pointed out. We had meetings with Carver and Weon and we had assumed that they were going to be pushing for what we presented to them the Rubux and anything new to them, that they needed to be monitoring the health of the batteries and ensuring that vehicle owners were getting the mileage that they expected in the distance they were expecting to get out of charge, and that that vehicle owners were getting the mileage that they expected in the distance they were expecting to get out of charge, and that that was a resource because it was requiring electricity, which is a resource and a shared resource, and they didn't be using that efficiently, not to mention safety issues of temperature etc, all that needed to be done to the temperature, etc then, all that needed to be done.

However, if we had not pushed for that and gotten that into the car regulations, then we would have been cut out of the ability to get off the Nile-Eurostatic Commission to service batteries. Wow, which in the future, is going to be a big deal. Battery technology is one thing that's changing really fast right now and they're solving a lot of the issues that people are afraid of Cars catching on fire because of the heat and all that. Well, there's solid state battery technology is coming. That kind of takes that off the table. No longer a risk. Yeah.

They must have learned from hard drives, right? I remember when you were, you'd be so scared that you would drop your hard drive and you'd get ruined. And it came out with solid-state hard drives, yeah, yeah.

Thank God. Yeah, well, it's a little bit different technology, but it is making it a lot safer and putting a lot more life out of the batteries. But AI has a lot to do with that, because they're using AI a lot in the development of new technologies. But getting back to having access to the data, it's still kind of daunting the ability to access through these secure gateways, even though there are a lot of vehicle manufacturers several of them. You can get access to some of the data, but you have to buy different tools to do that. You have to pay for different software subscriptions. For all of that there's a different process for each one, which is why we were pushing for standardization.

It doesn't seem very transparent.

It's not, it's it seems, it seems purposeful, but in a lot of cases it's just that they, that we continue to speak about the, the uh automobile and manufacturers as one entity, and it's really, you know, 26 of them 30, as now will be me and they're all separate and they're all different. It's hard to talk about them at this point when you get down to this level of detail as to you know, access, the data and if you can and what you can get and that may vary from time to time Over time. Also, you may be able to get some information in some period of time and it can change. That's why, again, that's why we push for standardization. It makes sense. So we'll see how that evolves down the road.

But one thing that I did want to point out in communicating with the vehicle is that we get a lot of pushback on telematics, access to data, and in some cases our members aren't even aware of. Well, why do we need remote access to the vehicle? We're not going to try to repair a vehicle in a way that's not right there with us. Why don't? We can plug into it.

Well, it's not right there with us, you can plug into it. Well, the reason we push for it is something that we ourselves demonstrated before the OEMs actually implemented, and that's remote diagnostics, a vehicle where you can connect to the vehicle and scan the vehicle remotely, not to change anything, not to repair anything, but to assess the status of that vehicle and determine what the severity of the issue is. I'm talking about check engine light, and then, looking at the check engine light, you determine what's the cause, what's the potential fix and how severe is this? Can I keep driving it or do I need to have it towed? It's a safety house.

Yeah, it's a safety house, so I don't have to wait two weeks, right.

And so, yeah, and that was the business case that we pushed forward is that, yeah, you can do a remote diagnostic on it. You can say, hey, you know what this is an issue, just schedule time to come by and we can address. Hey, you know what this is an issue, just schedule time to come by and we can address that as a simple maintainer. But you would be able to do that over the app, for instance. Potentially, Now, if it needs to be towed, we'd be connecting to someone who can tow the vehicle and what else.

We can also start lining up and scheduling a date with the right mechanic that works on, let's say, transmission. We can get him scheduled. You know what? We can already get the parts in flight to be there. Okay, so that's what the vehicle manufacturers would be doing. We need to be able to compete with level playing film in that regard. So we do need remote access, not to fix the vehicle, not to change it remotely, but just to assess the vehicle and to support our customers and to be able to take advantage of all the efficiencies associated.

It's pretty simple, right? We're not asking for anything that we haven't asked for before, haven't had access to before. It's just a opinion and data, and we want to be able to compete on the same local playing field and service our customers. Right, we want to provide that choice. Right, you can go to the dealer if you want to, but you should also have the choice to go to and down the street for a meal and not be forced to eat a jacker, so something crazy to go Exactly.

Mike, this has been really, um, enlightening. There's so much we could talk about. I feel like you could do a podcast on each one of these topics. Honestly, because there's a lot and you have a lot of knowledge and we're so lucky to have you. I want to, um, uh, let our guests know about two opportunities here to kind of get engaged in the conversation, uh, especially now.

So you were talking about when you can't find the sorry. You were talking about when a technician may not be made to find access to the tools or the data in order to repair that vehicle. Now, we don't know if it's more easily accessible and it's being hidden, if that horizon is transparent, but in the end, what we're finding out, based on survey, is that technicians are having to turn away vehicles and send them to the dealer because of their inability to completely fix a car. So you might be able to diagnose the thing I'm not able to install a part but like that final last kind of step that they need to do to safely put that vehicle back on the road, they can't do without some sort of OEM theory or whether that's a tool or a reprogramming or getting it back to the dealer to do one of those things. So one of the things that we're asking if you are a technician listening to this, if you have technician or shop partners is to help us report those instances so we can gather those examples and try to create a better way for our industry to access that data and provide a solution to these issues. So there's one URL that you can visit for that. That's autocareorg slash camp repair. You may see our camp repair what it can't do. So let us know what you were trying to fix, how you were trying to fix it, what the barrier was, and then we'll be evaluating those responses and using those to help start, help figure out how can we find a solution from our office and how come better communicate to legislators that this is a problem right now.

Uh, number two is our legislative summit is coming up and you probably heard an amazing ad from our svp of planning and affairs, nisa foche. But I just want to reiterate Mike and the entire team, I've been working so hard on this issue and this is the furthest that's ever gone, and so we'll bill in the House, we'll have a bill at the Senate federally right to inherit has so much attention and so much momentum and coming to Capitol Hill to tell your legislator that you need this for the business, but not just your business. It affects you, it affects the business, but not just your business. It affects you, it affects the family, affects your loved ones, it affects your life and more. We need to tell those spurs so autocureorg slash legislative summit that are coming up and as many bonds as russell, and to spread that message.

Yeah, you may get my days. You come to the meeting. We train you on how to talk to your legislator. It's in font, so it's. We train you on how to talk to your legislators and funds. So it's easier than you think. Listen to my podcast. We jury them up for a flavor of how easy it was for him. And reach out to the team if you have any questions, because it's an amazing experience to walk the halls of congress and, you know, exercise your marrying rights. All your legislators know that there's an issue that's affecting you and something needs to change. So I really, really hope everybody needs to stay tuned for that. Mike Taryn, thank you so much for joining us. I'm looking forward to more.

Yep, thanks for having me. I enjoyed it. I know you like it. Yep, you can beat it, and we need to talk about embedded software.