No Hiding Place - for Car Companies

Word comes from the Automotive News that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is meeting today with invited representatives of 15 auto makers to propose improvements to the current system for identifying recall-inducing vehicle defects and improving recall completion rates. The agency wants a voluntary agreement from the automakers that can be announced on January 15th at the North American International Auto Show, according to the Automotive News report.

https://tinyurl.com/nt9m9fq - NHTSA to meet with automakers over safety recall lapses

The bottom line message to car makers: Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!

After a year of record recalls and the emergence of vehicle security breaches and Volkswagen’s emissions cheating, NHTSA has finally figured out that nearly every organization (or individual) tied to the automobile industry has access to vehicle data, except NHTSA. OBDII device makers Mojio, Zubie, Vinli, Hum, Voyo, Automatic and more have pulled back the curtain on access to vehicle data and opened up cars to insurance companies, repair shops, car enthusiasts and anyone else interested and willing to pay.

While vehicle data available via the OBDII port can help an insurer determine if a driver is a good risk, it can also identify failing or faulty vehicle systems before, during or after an accident. Some aftermarket OBDII device makers even enable remote control of vehicle functions via the OBDII port.

NHTSA risks becoming the “dumbest guy in the room” if it doesn’t get out in front, insisting on car maker cooperation in sharing information related to fatal crashes in a timely manner as well as responding to customer complaints and concerns - currently curated on NHTSA's safercar.gov Website.  NHTSA may also want to reconsider outlawing OBDII devices, which have been shown to alter vehicle performance.

While 2015 introduced the phenomenon of the hacker threatening to blackmail car companies over vehicle vulnerabilities, the data spilling out of OBDII ports is a commercial proposition that will inevitably come back to haunt the industry. Cars have become like cooperative witnesses willing and eager to disclose their secrets to investigators, not unlike old emails surrendered during investigations of GM, Toyota, Takata, Honda and Volkswagen.

It will be no surprise to observers of the unfolding Volkswagen emissions scandal that Volkswagen was quietly working on ways to limit access to the OBDII port - to no avail.

We learned in 2015 that cars are an insecure open book. But the implication of the new “revelations” of 2015 is that car makers have to start paying more attention to the data themselves before some third party discovers damning data buzzing around the car’s CANbus first. For cars that lack built-in wireless connections, beating the data hounds to the incriminating bits will not be so easily done.

For now, NHTSA is playing nice asking for voluntary support of an improved system for identifying vehicle flaws and getting more of them, all of them, fixed. NHTSA is asking for voluntary support – as it is doing with regard to a broader voluntary industry adoption of automatic emergency braking. Voluntary support from the industry for NHTSA requests is a swifter path to market than the time consuming rule making and mandates process.

NHTSA director Mark Rosekind and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx don’t have time. They have a mandate to make progress along with an arsenal of recently enhanced penalties and a Congress willing to humiliate the industry into cooperation.

Car makers will do well to take note of NHTSA’s newfound seriousness and commitment to change and seize the opportunity to fix the process of fixing recalls. While the industry may be one of the least transparent overall, we learned in 2015 that the operations of cars take place in a highly transparent environment. The car makers have run from regulation for too long and now have nowhere to hide.