An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In 2020, voters in Massachusetts chose to extend that state’s automotive “right to repair” law to include telematics and connected car services. But this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told automakers that some of the law’s requirements create a real safety problem and that they should be ignored since federal law preempts state law when the two conflict. Almost all new cars in 2023 contain embedded modems and offer some form of telematics or connected car services. And the ballot language that passed in Massachusetts requires “manufacturers that sell vehicles with telematics systems in Massachusetts to equip them with a standardized open data platform beginning with model year 2022 that vehicle owners and independent repair facilities may access to retrieve mechanical data and run diagnostics through a mobile-based application.”

There have been attempts by state lawmakers, the auto industry, and NHTSA to tweak the law to create a more reasonable timeline for implementation, but to no avail. Now, according to Reuters, NHTSA has written to automakers to advise them not to comply with the Massachusetts law. Among its problems are the fact that someone “could utilize such open access to remotely command vehicles to operate dangerously, including attacking multiple vehicles concurrently,” and that “open access to vehicle manufacturers’ telematics offerings with the ability to remotely send commands allows for manipulation of systems on a vehicle, including safety-critical functions such as steering, acceleration, or braking.” Faced with this dilemma, it’s quite possible the automakers will respond by simply disabling telematics and connected services for customers in the state. Subaru already took that step when it introduced its model year 2022 vehicles, and NHTSA says other OEMs may do the same.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.