07.07.2023
Sector Specific Legislation for Mobility Service Providers
Despite the recent agreement of the Data Act, which has been welcomed by our industry, the view of the broader mobility and aftermarket services industry continues to be that the Data Act does not sufficiently address the particularities of the automotive and mobility sector.
Access to in-vehicle data is readily available for car manufacturers, while increasingly leasing and rental companies are finding access to in-vehicle data increasingly difficult to procure for any non-safety related updates. There are widely divergent conditions of access in market segments and use cases where the OEMs are active in downstream markets, notably in automotive leasing, though not limited to our industry. There is already evidence that the incentives created by vertical OEM integration lend themselves to a two-speed data access market, where greater access to data, at a higher quality and granularity, is being reserved for the OEMs’ own downstream services.
Given today’s dependence of independent operators and services providers on “work around solutions”, notably the OBD port, the progressive closure of that port will constrain independent operators and services providers even more.
As such, we continue to petition and urge the European Commission, in particular Commissioner Breton, to reconsider their views and acknowledge that sector specific regulation is necessary to suitably govern vehicle leasing and rental, which will be required to allow for fair access to and use of data in the spirit of fair competition and in the interests of the consumer.
