The European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (ETRMA) welcomes today’s publication by the European Commission of its Guidance on Access to In-Vehicle Data. This marks an important step in ensuring that Europe’s mobility ecosystem can benefit from fair, secure, and innovation-friendly access to the growing volume of data generated by connected vehicles.

ETRMA and its members have long called for clear rules that guarantee a level playing field between vehicle manufacturers and other service providers across the mobility value chain. The Commission’s guidance is a necessary step in clarifying expectations around definitions of data and related services, as well as data included in the scope of the Data Act. However, this is not a substitute for the much-awaited sector-specific legislation, which would further clarify these issues in the context of the mobility ecosystem.

At the same time, ETRMA remains concerned about the potential impact of an omnibus focused on the Data Act, as we believe it would undermine years of work to ensure stakeholders have access to data. Without clear safeguards, the Omnibus may create additional legal uncertainty, fragment implementation across Member States, and ultimately jeopardise the level playing field that the Commission’s Guidance seeks to promote.

ETRMA believes that it would be particularly useful to complement the Data Act with a proposal on access to data, which will help us in:

• Providing innovative mobility solutions for consumers;
• Supporting the circular economy;
• Contributing to the EU’s transport decarbonisation and safety objectives.

In this context, we recall our contribution to the Automotive Sector Interpretation Guide of the Data Act and the constructive work carried out with other stakeholders to build consensus on definitions and the scope of data in the Data Act. However, without additional measures, the Data Act’s ambition will be undermined.  Functions, such as access to HMI, to collect the user’s consent to facilitate efficient and secure data sharing in a unified European data space, shall be further supported in the context of a sector-specific regulation.