The lawsuit brought by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation ("Auto Innovators"), a trade association representing automotive manufacturers and suppliers in the United States, seeking to block a 2024 right to repair law adopted by ballot initiative in Maine is on ice following a vote by legislators in that state to amend that statute. Although the Maine Legislature voted to amend the law to remove a controversial provision challenged by the industry, the governor took no action on the law before the legislature adjourned on June 25, 2025, and industry participants will need to wait until January 2026 to see whether the amendment becomes law.
Maine Legislature Reviews Law After Ballot Initiative Passes
Maine voters in November 2023 voted to approve a ballot initiative enacting a statute to require 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 "mechanical data" generated by the vehicle. The law also required the Maine Attorney General to designate an "independent entity" to "manage cyber-secure access to motor vehicle-generated data" by issuing rules for telematics platforms. These provisions took effect on January 5, 2025, one year after the effective date of the so-called "Data Law."
The Maine Legislature in April 2024 directed the Attorney General to convene a working group to "develop recommendations for legislation to establish an entity to ensure cyber-secure access to motor vehicle-generated data." That working group delivered its recommendations in February 2025, proposing that the "independent entity" contemplated by the Data Law be reconstituted as a commission responsible for monitoring industry developments, rather than acting as a rulemaking body, with manufacturers left to determine how best to comply with the statutory requirement that vehicle owners and their chosen independent repair facilities be given direct access to telematics-generated mechanical data.
Auto Innovators Brings Suit and Maine Legislature Acts
With the January 5, 2025 effective date of the Data Law having come and gone with no clarity as to what rules governed telematics-equipped vehicles sold in Maine, Auto Innovators in late January 2025 filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Data Law as unconstitutional. The industry group argued that the statute violated the due process rights of manufacturers and was pre-empted by federal law, and further argue that the Maine Attorney General had violated state law by failing to appoint an "independent entity" to make appropriate rules while at the same time concluding that the Data Law was immediately enforceable and effective.
Meanwhile, after receiving the working group report in February 2025, the Maine Legislature voted to amend the Data Law in a manner largely consistent with the working group's recommendations. On June 18, 2025, both houses voted to approve LD 1228, "An Act to Clarify Certain Terms in and to Make Other Changes to the Automotive Right to Repair Law." The legislation as passed replaces the "independent entity" with a Motor Vehicle Right to Repair Commission with no rulemaking authority and merely responsible for assessing the implementation by OEMs of the Data Law. The legislation as passed also strikes the requirement that manufacturers immediately equip vehicles with an "inter-operable, standardized and owner-authorized access platform" for telematics data, and instead provides an additional 24 months for vehicle manufacturers that enable their dealers to perform diagnostic and repair functions using a telematics system to make available "on fair and reasonable terms" the ability for vehicle owners and their chosen independent repair facilities to do the same.
Lawsuit Stayed Pending Action by Maine Governor
The Maine Legislature adjourned less than 10 days after passing LD 1228 with the governor having taken no action to either approve or reject the legislation. As a result, the change in law remains in limbo until January 2026 when the legislature reconvenes, at which time the governor will have three days to veto the bill or it will become law. In the meantime, Auto Innovators and the Maine Attorney General on July 18, 2025 filed a joint motion to stay the trade association's lawsuit, arguing that LD 1228 "if it becomes law, will have a significant effect on the nature and trajectory of this case" and "may render academic any prior adjudication of the merits" of the case. The federal court granted the motion on July 21, 2025.
The amended Data Law in Maine would appear to address many of the issues presented by a similar ballot initiative passed by Massachusetts voters in November 2020. Auto Innovators filed a similar constitutional challenge to the Massachusetts law, but a federal judge in February 2025 rejected the argument that compliance with that state's law was impossible because OEMs could simply disable the telematics systems of vehicles sold in Massachusetts to avoid the requirements of that state's law. Auto Innovators has appealed that decision and filed its opening brief on July 22, 2025. Briefing in that case should be completed before the end of 2025, with oral argument presumably following in early 2026.
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