With the year rapidly drawing to a close, 2026 appears to be the year a long-running industry challenge to a 2020 Massachusetts right-to-repair ballot initiative will finally be decided. Meanwhile, absent a gubernatorial veto, Maine is poised to adopt similar legislation in early 2026, while legislators in Wisconsin consider whether to adopt a similar provision during their 2025-2026 session. Efforts to regulate right to repair issues at the federal level also may pick up steam in 2026, with one right-to-repair bill already filed and industry participants suggesting an alternative.

Massachusetts Data Access Law

In February 2025, a Massachusetts federal district court finally issued a decision rejecting a long-running challenge brought by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (“Auto Innovators”), a manufacturer trade association, to a 2020 ballot initiative amending that state’s right-to-repair law (the “Data Access Law”). The Data Access Law requires that vehicles sold in Massachusetts that “utilize a telematics system” be equipped with an “inter-operable, standardized and open access platform” that makes vehicle-generated “mechanical data” available to owners through a “mobile-based application” and also available to owner-authorized independent repair facilities.

In July 2025, Auto Innovators appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, arguing the district court erred in finding the trade association lacked standing to bring its protest and in concluding that the Data Access Law was not preempted by the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act (“MVSA”), putting “manufacturers on a collision course with the MVSA’s auto safety requirements.” In September 2025, the Massachusetts Attorney General filed a brief urging the First Circuit to affirm the trial court’s decision. With Auto Innovators expected to file its reply brief in November 2025, the First Circuit could hear argument in the first half of 2026 and issue a decision before the end of the year.

Maine and Wisconsin Right-to-Repair Laws

Meanwhile, Maine voters in November 2023 voted to approve a ballot initiative enacting a similar law requiring manufacturers of vehicles that use a “telematics system” to equip those vehicles with an “inter-operable, standardized and owner-authorized access platform” that provides owners and authorized independent repair facilities direct access to vehicle-generated data. After receiving a report from a working group formed to consider implementation of that law, however, the Maine Legislature voted to amend the law to strike the requirement that manufacturers equip vehicles with any particular technology “platform,” and instead requires that manufacturers who make vehicles that enable dealers to perform diagnostic and repair functions using a telematics system to make this functionality available “on fair and reasonable terms” to vehicle owners and their chosen independent repair facilities. Because Maine lawmakers adjourned their session less than 10 days after passing this amendment, this change remains in limbo until January 2026 when the legislature reconvenes, at which time the governor will have three days to veto the bill before it becomes law.

Bills introduced by Wisconsin lawmakers early in the 2025-2026 legislative session would follow Maine’s lead in mandating access to vehicle-generated telematics data for owners and independent repair facilities. Wisconsin A.B. 135 and S.B. 129 would require OEMs to provide owners “access to vehicle-generated data without restriction, limitation, fee, [or] license,” and for telematics-equipped vehicles, would require owner access to this data “in a direct and wireless method through a standardized access platform.” The bill also would require OEMs to provide access to “critical repair information and tools “without restriction or limitation and at a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory cost.” 

Federal Right-to-Repair Legislation

In February 2025, a bipartisan coalition of federal lawmakers at the outset of the 2025-2026 session introduced the Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair (REPAIR) Act, H.R. 1566. The bill would require OEMs to make vehicle-generated data available to owners and their designees “in or at the same manner, time, method, [and] cost” as that data is made available to dealers and other authorized motor vehicle service providers, including “to the extent such vehicle is equipped for wireless transmission of such data, over wireless technology via any telematics system.”  A similar bill stalled during the prior congressional session in 2023-2024, although the present bill appears to have pared back requirements imposed on OEMs.

In a February 18, 2025 letter to congressional members, Auto Innovators, together with the Automotive Service Association and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists, outlined flaws in prior efforts to enact federal legislation. The trade associations also proposed an alternative Safety as First Emphasis (SAFE) Repair Act that would incorporate existing protocols to protect vehicle owners and preserve parity between dealers and independent repair facilities in accessing vehicle-generate data needed to perform diagnostic and repair services. With these recent developments, could 2026 be the year Congress takes action to adopt a uniform national approach to access to vehicle-generated data?