Right (and cost) to repair

A couple weeks ago, the UK Independent Automotive Aftermarket Federation (IAAF) signed up to the global Right to Repair movement’s position statement which promotes fair and open competition, and regulation rather than voluntary codes to force access to repair and maintenance information.  This reflects the growing complexity of vehicles and the need for access to the vehicle data, and the means to understand what that data represents in terms of the vehicle condition and faults.  In order to complete a repair, they may also have to update the vehicle data in order for it to perform correctly – or even at all in some cases.

The tension between the vehicle manufacturers and independent repair sector is decades long, and the net result has been that broadly the market shares of the franchised and independent repairers have remained roughly in balance over the years in most mature markets.  The main drivers of repairer choice have been higher retention in franchised workshops for younger cars due to service plan penetration and the (incorrect) belief that the warranty would be invalidated going elsewhere, and the drift to independents for cost reasons as the car ages.  Independents generally have always kept up with the evolving technology demands as and when the parc of vehicles provided a commercial justification for making the necessary investments.

The ability to access the vehicle data and necessary repair information has rarely been anything other than a temporary barrier for the vast majority of cars in the parc, but there are good reasons to believe that this may change as the technology changes.  Manufacturers would like to move away from physical diagnostic ports on cars to over-the-air wireless access.  They are also moving in parallel with electrification to different electrical architectures that combine more functions in fewer processors on the cars, rather than rely on hundreds of dedicated processors around the car.  This makes integration easier, and processing faster, but it also means that giving access to fix a fault with an electric window may mean that the repairer has to be able to access a processor that controls many other functions – some critical to the emissions or safety performance of the car.  Manufacturers therefore raise these concerns over cybercrime as reasons to constrain repairer access.  It may or may not be a coincidence that this also ensures higher retention in authorised repairer networks…

A second longer term issue that has concerned me for years in parallel to this ongoing struggle for access, is that the increasing levels of technology will make the maintenance and repair of cars increasingly difficult and expensive as the cars age.  This first occurred to me when I ran an X350 Jaguar XJ-R – the first with an aluminium body, CAN bus electrical architecture and air suspension.  I experienced the first dramatic part of the depreciation curve, but cars like this are now valued at the level where a repair to one of the more complex systems may represent a substantial percentage of the total value of the car.  Inevitably they will end up heading to the scrapyard with many parts and systems still having years of life remaining, but too costly to repair the single fault that has condemned them.

This also applies to repairs that are feasible, but where the integration of a replacement part requires that it is coded into the rest of the vehicle – again an access issue.  Some repairers try to work around this by replacing an automatic gearbox with a reused part for example, but swapping across the control unit from the mechanically defective gearbox to fool the car into thinking nothing has changed.  If we now consider where we are heading to with more complex powertrains – not only BEV, but also hybrid and plug-in hybrid, we are going to compound this challenge, and it seems that the inevitable result will be premature scrappage with practical limitations on what proportion of the components on those cars scrapped can realistically be reused to sustain the older parc.

The focus of the regulators and hence the manufacturers has been on the emissions performance of cars during their usage.  This has attracted criticism from many quarters that it does not take into account the environmental impact of the mining of raw materials and manufacture and shipment of batteries, pushing the environmental ‘breakeven’ point out to five years or so, depending on the manufacturing and sourcing footprint.  That is a fair and valid point, but should we not also be looking at the other end of the lifecycle to consider the environmental footprint of a car that is scrapped at a relatively young age because of both the ability and cost to repair?  Whilst this has been raised in respect of BEVs and their batteries, it also applies to other aspects of the car, including on ICE cars.  Those who know me will fully understand that I am unlikely to make the fashion page of GQ or similar, but a saying from the late fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood, is perhaps relevant here – “Buy less, choose well, make it last”.