Right to Repair for Heavy Truck - The DL S3E14 is now available on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, IGTV, and YouTube.

In this episode of The DL, Diesel Laptops’ Founder and CEO, Tyler Robertson, is joined by Paul McCarthy, President & CEO at AASA, and Bill Hanvey, President & CEO at Auto Care Association, to talk everything about right to repair.

As always thank you for watching and listening!

CONNECT WITH PAUL MCCARTHY AND AASA:

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-t-mccarthy/

Website – https://www.aftermarketsuppliers.org

CONNECT WITH BILL HANVEY AND AUTO CARE ASSOCIATION:

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/billhanvey/

Website – https://www.autocare.org

Transcript for Right to Repair for Heavy Truck - The DL S3E14:

Tyler Robertson:

What about Paul? You good to go?

Paul:

Yes, definitely. All right. If I sound good, that's as much as I can do.

Tyler Robertson:

Right. Sound good. You look good.

Paul:

And look good.

Tyler Robertson:

Yeah. All right.

Paul:

And look good.

Tyler Robertson:

All right. So Shauna, your final check. You're good?

Shauna:

Yep. All good to go.

Tyler Robertson:

All right. I'm going to start my little intro here and we'll get into it guys. All right. Welcome to the DL. I am your host, Tyler Robertson, the CEO and founder of Diesel Laptops. Now, if you know me, you know Diesel Laptops, we live in the aftermarket world. This is our place. This is the reason our company exists is to help provide tools, solutions, services, repair, information training, outside of what the OEMs do in their world.

Tyler Robertson:

And there's a lot of questions we always get about right to repair. There was the heavy duty memorandum of understanding that was signed several years ago. Where are things at? If you listen to the news back in July, president Biden signed an executive order, directing the FTC in the department of Ag to start taking some action on some things. We saw president Biden in January talking again about right to repair. So it's pretty cool when our industry and our space is making it all the way up to the president of the United States.

Tyler Robertson:

And I've brought two gentlemen on here today to help us unpack all this and explain it more and what's going on and what needs to be done. So I'm really excited to have him here. So I'm going to introduce two people. First, let's talk to Paul. Paul, can you kind of explain what your role in this is and what you do?

Paul:

Well, sure. We're one of the associations here supporting this right to repair activity and I'm president of AESA, which is the automotive aftermarket suppliers association. So we represent all the folks who make the parts, the tools, diagnostics, chemicals, the technologies that keep vehicles running safely and affordably across the life cycle. And we're a proud part of MEMA, which has been representing vehicle suppliers and manufacturers since 1904. And that's everything from commercial vehicle to light vehicle and OE to aftermarket. And we're a very proud supporter of right to repair and this effort.

Tyler Robertson:

Well, the other gentleman we have on here is Bill. So Bill, if you could, again, explain to everyone here a little bit on you and your organization and what role you're playing in this.

Bill:

Sure. First of all, thank you so much for allowing Paul and I, this opportunity to speak to your audience about really what is their future. So I represent the Autocare Association. I am a lifelong Autocare aftercare, heavy duty participant. My entire career's been spent in the industry, defending the industry. The Autocare Association represents the entire vertical supply chain. So we represent part manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and folks all the way down to the local truck repair shop on the corner of Elman May. So the entire vertical supply chain.

Bill:

We, in conjunction with another association called Care, initially passed right to repair in 2012, by signing that MOU that you had referenced that has been in existence as I said, since 2012. Back in Massachusetts in 2021, where we passed right to repair two by 75% margin, the voters approve that bill. And we're currently in court as a result of the automakers taking us to the court to defend that bill. So very much entrenched in right to repair and ensuring that the commercial trucking industry and the heavy duty side are represented to have that data available to them for repair.

Tyler Robertson:

So I want to unpack that just a little bit. I know this thing happened in the last fall up in Massachusetts, and I actually saw some of the videos that were anti right to repair. And it was really appalling. I was shocked. It was like a stoker outside a house or outside a person's car. And they're implying that, "Man, if you guys pass right to repair, people are going to break into your cars. They're going to mug you." All these bad things are going to happen in your life and Massachusetts still passed it overwhelmingly.

What was that bill specifically about? What was different about that one than the previous right to repair bills that have gone through Massachusetts?

Bill:

The previous MOU for right to repair that was agreed upon in 2012 with the automakers and on the commercial side, it guaranteed the same access to data through the OBD II port as is available at the vehicle dealerships. What's different and what has evolved since 2012 and 2013 is that now the vehicles, both automobiles and class eight trucks and off highway vehicles are transmitting data wirelessly to the manufacturers and it allows them to actually bypass this OBD II port in terms of being able to acquire diagnostic and maintenance data from that particular port.

Bill:

So in actuality, the truck makers and the automakers may be able to completely circumvent the availability of that data by not making it available through the OBD II port. We needed to go back and say, we need to have access to this data, whether it's through the OBD II port, or whether it's through that wireless connection, but we need to be able to have access to that data at the point of the vehicle and not rely upon logging into an OEM server so that we can gain access to this data, because then the original equipment manufacturer would be able to dictate what data they make available to the aftermarket.

Bill:

And we don't ever want to be beholden to that.

Tyler Robertson:

Makes perfect sense.

Paul:

And if I can-

Tyler Robertson:

Yeah. Please go ahead, Paul.

Paul:

If I can build on that, because it's very well said, Bill. Is when we talk about right to repair, I mean, you talked over those crazy commercials, which really had nothing to do with what the industry is seeking to do. And it's worth going back to what are the principles here? What is right to repair? And it's very simple and it's just a goal of preserving customer choice and market competition on where and with what parts, your vehicles, your trucks are repaired. And that's very simple. It's very principles based. It's what has served our industry well for over a century.

Paul:

And it's just the basic idea of, "Let's keep free markets. Let's keep competition." And these are principles that underpin not just our whole repair industry, but also just the American system and the reality is, and we've seen it in other sectors, that technology gives people the ability to get monopoly power, to just control and say, "I'm not going to give you that information. If you put this part on it, we'll only make that part work. If it has a line of code, that works with... That I got to approve it. And that tells me that you bought this part from me, not whether this part works or not, not whether it's safe or not, but just whether you bought it from me." So it's really just trying to keep that market competition.

Paul:

And I would throw out... You talked about those commercials, which were pretty offensive but-

Bill:

Egregious.

Paul:

Yes. And let's be realistic. It's in everybody's interest that all of those trucks, whether you're a fleet, whether you're an owner operator that you're able to keep it repaired. That we can keep it on the road, we can keep it operating. That should be the truck maker's interest. That should be the parts' maker's interest, that should be everybody's interest.

Paul:

And we really shouldn't have a fight about this. We know we got to keep the uptime, we got to keep these things running and let's make that easy and simple. And so to come together around that. I would also throw out... In reality, we've been dealing with safety systems and emission systems and regulated systems collaboratively. And with safety for years, we've been dealing as an industry up and down the chain with security systems for years. So I also want to stress that at least our industries, groups that are pushing for right to repair, that we are dedicated to safety. We are dedicated to security and cybersecurity. These are cornerstones of the effort and what certainly our two organizations and we think the industry is aiming for here. And that's the values of our members too. The folks who provide those parts that your listeners trust.

Tyler Robertson:

So Paul, I'd like to unpack a little bit more when you talk about industries. So when people say the words, 'right to repair,' I mean, obviously people in video portion, there's an automotive vehicle behind you in your screenshot. And we're talking heavy truck, we have the Autocare Association, not the heavy truck care association. So there's automotive, there's heavy truck and right to repair when you Google it, a lot of what comes up is two other things. John Deere, they're in the spotlight all the time for this whole thing. And then you have the digital tools, the mobile devices, the phones, apple, Microsoft, those type of guys. So is this a lot of different battles being fought on different fronts? Or is there combined forces here or how are all these things being worked together? Are they all just completely separate bills and laws that are trying to get pushed through the capital?

Paul:

Bill you want take it first or you want me too?

Bill:

Sure. I'd be glad to. So number one, there are, as you could see from president Biden and the acts that are coming through the federal trade commission, there's a lot of attention being focused on "right to repair," particularly in the agricultural community, the heavy duty community, the automotive community, the cell phone community and each particular segment has their own nuances.

Bill:

We wanted to ensure that we were very focused on not only automotive, but heavy duty as well when we sponsored the repair act that was sponsored by Congressman Rush. So the noise and the attention that's been paid to right to repair is growing. We are speaking with those other organizations in terms of the agricultural community, the cell phone repair community. But again, we wanted to be really singularly focused on number one, the ability to access, repair and maintenance data from the vehicle at the point of the vehicle itself.

Bill:

In many other cases, there are other things that got involved in terms of personal data and so on and so forth. We wanted to keep it very simple and very singular so that we had a very good message, which is why we have, as I mentioned, the repair act. So it's great recognition. The consumers are very aware of this going forward. And that's the momentum that we're building in Congress in terms of the bill that we sponsored. So Paul, anything to add from your point of view?

Paul:

Well, I think that was a great summary and just adding a little bit of color on what Bill said about the repair act. So we heard from the president addressing this even more importantly, that federal trade commission bipartisanly, unanimously passing it and saying, there is an issue there is repair restrictions and the risk of more going forward, and that's not good for competition. So in follow up to that, we did have this repair act, this federal bill that Bill talked about that was introduced. And I think it's a good bill. It is very principle space. Just how do we get that competition? And how do we make sure that you can get your vehicle repaired and your truck repaired. How do you want it repaired? And I will say that repair act does include the heavy duty sector.

Paul:

It's not just like duty. And that is how the government often addresses these regulations. They have the term motor vehicles, which includes both the truck and the car side of the business. And they often look at it that way and want to have that set of rules. Now, the issues are certainly different that we've seen on both sides of the industry, but I think the long term risks, there's certainly some overlap. And in any situation it's never good when one person can decide how a market works.

Paul:

You generally just want to have competition. You want to have choice. And I think it is important that heavy duty is included in this bill. The other thing I throw out about the bill is it's also designed so we have a mechanism to problem solve together as an industry together. And by an industry I mean everybody. From the independent aftermarket, all the way through the truck makers, through the dealers, through the fleets, and it's structured in such a way that, "Hey, if somebody believes we're falling short of this goal of reasonable market competition, here's a mechanism where we can get together and the industry can talk about this, try to problem solve this. And if we can't that the federal trade commission can ultimately sort of decide and say, 'Well, here's what is good for customers and good for competition.'"

Paul:

And I think that's very important because nobody wants to be in these fights with legislation and us as... We want to go to our business and do the business of keeping these trucks running, we don't want to spend our time trying to talk to Congress people and things of that sort. So we think that's another really great part of the bill that we think everybody along the chain should get behind.

Tyler Robertson:

So you brought a good point. We want to keep the trucks running. I think if COVID showed us anything, we need freight to keep moving from the ports all the way to the store shelves so people can keep buying and getting the things they need. And I needed to look no further than what happened in the last six months where certain manufacturers had to get EPA approval to do it, basically a factory approved, EPA approved emission delete because they couldn't supply the parts.

Tyler Robertson:

And by the way, those parts had ad IP associated with them, preventing other companies from making those parts. And they really kind of shot themselves in the foot here. So as a consumer and someone that's on this side of it, the part I'm struggling to understand is why are manufacturers so against this? Is this just a pure dollar profit thing they're trying to hoard their... Not hoard, but they're trying to protect their territory? Is it IP they're afraid they're going to lose? What's their big reason for being against this because it surely can't be the stalker that's going to go break into my house, because we have a right to repair act on automobiles. What is this?

Bill:

Well, maybe I can. So what I'd like to do is just go back to... So specifically for the heavy beauty industry. So the flow of goods relies on trucks, repairs and maintained by the trucking companies, the independence. They need access to truck data to regularly perform safety, inspection, repairs and maintenance. And if there's any delays in those repairs or maintenance, that's going to restrict the flow of goods in the U.S. The truck makers and the dealerships specifically and the automakers and the auto dealerships really are trying to create this cradle to grave relationship with their consumer.

Bill:

They want to sell the truck, they want to maintain the truck. They want the truck to be traded back in. They want it to be a contiguous cycle. What they don't take into account for is that the fact, the aftermarket service providers, the independent truck repair facilities, they provide a tremendous service to the industry by being able to provide those repairs most often at a lesser price using in many cases, the same type of products and parts that came off the vehicle and putting them back on the vehicle.

Bill:

And let's be realistic with one another. There is no way that the original equipment service facilities would be able to keep up with the maintenance if the independent channel was cut out of the situation, they would not. And the independent truckers and the fleets would not be able to survive. The cost of goods would grow exponentially if everybody was forced to the dealerships and good luck trying to get that repair scheduled six months out. And not only that, but from a convenience standpoint, having to tow your truck, not to an independent repair facility, if it's broken down, but to the nearest dealership, that may be 250 miles away.

Bill:

So just the logic of trying to keep the aftermarket out of the equation, it just befuddles me in the entire industry. So creating that monopoly with the truck owner and the fleet, it just is not going to happen. And it's not realistic for them to imagine that.

Paul:

Yeah. I think that's well said, Bill and very passionately said. Let's be honest. There's a reason that the aftermarket exists and it points to why this in the end should be win-win. There's capacity issues. There's third owners, which frankly just aren't of that much interest typically to an OE. And there's a reason that the independent aftermarket serves segments of the market so well, and so fundamentally right to repair should be win-win. And we really shouldn't be fighting about this. There's a reason the aftermarket exists. Let it serve customers well.

Paul:

I'd also throw out... You mentioned about IP and things of that sort. And I do want to make clear because my members develop an awful lot of that IP, that intellectual property and the trade secrecy and everything else. Right to repair and intellectual property protection are not mutually exclusive. And our members who developed most of that IP feel that very strongly. We believe very much in intellectual property and protecting that and protecting those rights. That's not the same issue. You can do that, and you can still have right to repair. You can still have the ability to service our vehicles and service our trucks, how we want them serviced.

Tyler Robertson:

Well, that's all very well said. I, a 100% agree with you guys. I came out of the dealership world. That's where I work for 10 years. And as a service manager, I loved having two or three weeks of work in my shopping, in my yard. The customers hated it. And even me, I'm an aftermarket company. And a lot of the reason the business we do have is because OEMs are hard to work with. They're hard to get access to their diagnostic tools, hard to get access to repair information, they're expensive.

Tyler Robertson:

I know the heavy duty memorandum act was signed. It was a great step, and I know it builds onto the next step, but it left a lot of vagueness out there. And one of the problems we ran across was, well, it covered engine software, but OEM still weren't selling us the cab software, or it had to be at a reasonable price and Cummins they're like, "Hey, reasonable price is a thousand bucks a year." That's reasonable. They have a big population. Hino, small population. Their reasonable price was $2,400 a year. So it was hard, but I think it was a great first step in that direction.

Tyler Robertson:

Has there been more movement specifically in the HD industry since that was signed? Or how do you guys feel things have progressed since that HD MOU was signed, which I got to think it's probably been seven or eight years now. I'm not even sure exactly when it was, but it's been a minute.

Tyler Robertson:

Bill, you want to-

Bill:

There's been significant progress on that. And the original right to repair act in Massachusetts excluded commercial vehicles. Signed the MOU. This right to repair act that was passed by the voters in the fall of 2021 did include commercial vehicles. So we brought in the commercial vehicle community. We asked how their particular needs would make sense within this particular act. We included it, even though the voters did not necessarily understand really how including commercial vehicle in this act would affect them, but they responded overwhelmingly by including a commercial vehicle in the right to repair act that was passed in the fall of 21.

Bill:

So with that being said, the commercial vehicle community has been more active in terms of their advocacy work. We are providing opportunities for the heavy duty commercial vehicle community to become more involved in advocacy.

Bill:

And I think that it's very important for the listeners to understand that this is not necessarily on the shoulders of Bill Andy or Paul McCarthy or the Autocare association, or HDMA, or HDDA, that it is the responsibility of the people in this community to get involved. We need your voice. We need you to sign petitions. We need you to become active. We need you to create a relationship with your Congress people so that when we are working on legislation, such as this, they understand the implications on your business.

Bill:

And that's what's critical is please become involved in this fight because Paul and I were talking before our discussion today, both the automakers and the truck makers have a death by a thousand cuts philosophy. So can we shut you out of using coded parts? Can we shut you out using data? Can we shut you out using technology? And we continually, as an industry, have to be at the forefront in terms of fighting these means to shut us off from either data or the ability to provide quality repairs at a significantly lower price. Get involved. That's the message on my end.

Tyler Robertson:

So Paul-

Paul:

Yeah. And I think-

Tyler Robertson:

Yeah, I'd love to hear. How do people get involved in... If you can add anything to that, I'd love to hear.

Paul:

Yeah, Sure. Go ahead Bill.

Bill:

I'll take it first, Paul. Well, I'll finish it up. So on our website, we do have an opportunity for those that are interested to be able to do that. autocare.org/advocacy. There is a section there for the commercial vehicle community to be able to sign up and write a note to their legislators, so that's important for them to understand. And we can send you some information as to where to go for that, but all they have to do is fill out their name and let their Congress people know that they're interested. And then we send that letter to their respective congressperson that tells them that you are interested in right to repair for heavy duty or the commercial side.

Paul:

Yeah. And I think that's well said, Bill. And we have the same thing on our website and go to our website. And what I would say is it's so easy these days to make your voice be heard, where it populates, it tells you who your representative, makes that message very easy to do. And again, the best way to convince people is to have them visit you. So have them visit your facility or your company. They always like to see voters. And I will say it's an election year. So a lot of Congress people, we spending an awful lot of time back home. And so they're there.

Paul:

And these days everybody's gotten used to the zoom meetings. And so we've had a lot of great zoom, legislative meetings with legislators. So it's ever more important and it's ever easier to have your voice be heard, and it is your voice and an individual's voices and company's voices that make a difference and get things done. And just going... Adding a little bit of color on the heavy duty side, it's an interesting situation where a lot of the repair [inaudible 00:26:22] is generally available, but there's clearly specific codes that may not be available.

Paul:

And a large fleet can use their leverage and make sure that they are getting the information they need from the customer. But frankly, an individual owner operator should have the same access as a large fleet. And it shouldn't be how much leverage you have. And it shouldn't be a matter of whether a single individual company wants to give it to me. And that's why we're pushing on this basis to have a legal framework that we can count on that people can build a business model behind and just set the rules, the road so that everybody can compete.

Paul:

And you know what happens when you get that market competition? Everybody gets better. The truck makers will do a better job. The independents will do a better job. And in the end it'll be the fleets. It'll be the truck operators who get better service. And we can keep those vehicles on the road, more affordably and serve America, keep all that freight movement.

Paul:

That's all we're really trying to do. And we do think technology, if we sleep on this, there's going to be a lot of problems down the road. And so let's set the rules of the road. Let's people compete and let's have a great business decades to come.

Tyler Robertson:

Well. I want to thank both of you gentlemen, for coming on the show. We're definitely going to take those notes, put them in the show notes, links to go to those pages for advocacy. Definitely needs to be done. And what you guys are doing is very, very important to everybody, I think. People that own cars, people that run trucks and in any way that you do anything, I guarantee a commercial truck's part of your life, whether you realize it or not.

Tyler Robertson:

And I know you guys are making progress because I have not seen presidents talking about right to repair previously. So it tells me the momentum shifting, things are going that way. Voters are responding and you're absolutely right.

Tyler Robertson:

Politicians, they listen to what people are telling them. I mean, they have lobbyists, but they got voters and they need the more voters that are talking about things, the more important it becomes to them.

Tyler Robertson:

So if you think your voice doesn't matter, it does. And your vote matters. You really got to out there, like you said, it's an election year. People want to get out there and meet people and talk to people and hit the right notes when they're having conversations and speeches. So thank you both for coming on the show. It's been a great episode. I hope everyone learned a lot. I can tell you, Diesel Laptops is obviously pro after market, pro right to repair. There's no doubt about it. That's where we live and breathe. Thank you everyone for watching and listening.

Tyler Robertson:

Remember it's not just diagnostics, it's diagnostics done right. And yeah, we do need right to repair. We need access to information, to tools, to knowledge in order to repair things properly, safely and efficiently. So thank you very much for watching and listening. Like, comment, subscribe, share. We appreciate it. We'll catch you on the next episode.

Bill:

Fantastic. Thank you.

Tyler Robertson:

Cool guys.

Paul:

Thank you very much.

Tyler Robertson:

Yeah. Thank you very much. That was great. Really appreciate. It's always hard with three people trying to bounce around. So you guys-