Industry professionals discuss ADAS, cybersecurity, tech shortage

Chris Chesney: The industry is faced with a large challenge to become competent with respect to many of the basic services that we’ve done for years, including alignments, brake service, suspension service, etc. The lack of accuracy with those services in the past that we’ve been able to get away with won’t be allowed when dealing with ADAS systems, because those basic services and systems are assumed to be functioning as designed in order for the ADAS systems to work properly. Much like we tried to preach when anti-lock brake systems (ABS) came out, if the base brake system wasn’t working properly, the ABS couldn’t work properly. The same thing is coming into effect with ADAS. If those systems don’t know where the car is pointed, and we don’t align the cameras in the proper orientation, then those systems may be looking off to the right and not see a vehicle approaching from the left, and thus won’t react — or it could overreact. I see these technologies really changing the window of tolerance for the basic services we already provide.

Pete Meier: A young man at NACE Automechanika Atlanta this past August shared a story where he deliberately set the targets off line, and the vehicle accepted that calibration. There were no hints of codes or issues in the system because the car, as far as it was concerned, was looking straight down the road. But in reality, it wasn’t. It was enough of an angle that when the vehicle’s ADAS system did go into play, it would cause the vehicle to veer out of its lane rather than stay in it.

I agree with Chris — we’ve been at a point for many years where you can’t go by generalities when you’re repairing these vehicles. A message that we have to get out to our audience is that you may decide that you’re not going to align cameras or get involved with the radar systems as a shop or technician, but even routine, basic services are affected by these advanced systems. Another part that comes into play is if you’re not doing it right, what kind of liability are you exposing yourself to? I would think it’s going to be quite a bit if a vehicle that you recently aligned is involved in an accident and evidence shows that the thrust angle was not correct. And that’s what we really have to push to our audience — you can’t just get by any more. You either need to be doing it right or you shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Robert L. Redding, Jr.: We at the Automotive Service Association (ASA) think this whole movement towards autonomous vehicles and ADAS should increase the importance of safety inspections for the aftermarket and consumers. As of now there are only 16 states that have safety inspection programs. Another aspect of this rapidly changing technology is the value of shop licensing or certification, whether that is done via OEs or state or federal governments. Particularly for associations and training, the move towards these new technologies is a critical juncture. Some repairers have gotten away with not focusing on training in their shops and not participating in meetings, webinars and educational conferences. We don’t see how you can escape these issues and still have a viable business in the future. It’s more critical than ever before to participate and train.

Chesney: Another challenge for the aftermarket is the gap between new technology and the corresponding education. In the past and still today, education comes after a supplier develops a new technology and sells it to an OEM. That technology is implemented into their vehicles and the supplier trains the OEM staff on how it works and how to service it. Those OEM  trainers then train their dealer network. Somewhere in that mix, that content eventually makes its way to the aftermarket where repairers will either use the OEM content or use the service information and the content to build tools for the aftermarket so that technicians can work on those vehicles when they show up in the bay. For the last 40 years we’ve always maintained a stable gap between when the technology was developed and when we would learn about it. But over the last three or four years especially — and for the foreseeable future — that process does not serve us fast enough. The technology is advancing so fast that the aftermarket is falling further and further behind to the point that we’re put at a disadvantage. That needs to change.

Motor Age: How has the need for cybersecurity impacted you or your organization and what should the industry as a whole be doing to be proactive?

Redding: This is something that is really important to us. We need to be sure that the bulk of the repairers are educated about these issues and that the baseline for protecting data evolves in a way that does not put legitimate professional shops out of business. In other words, we want to make sure that legislation dealing with cybersecurity is not created in a way that prevents repairers from accessing data.

One thing that is important in this window of time is the Inhofe Amendment, which is included in the U.S. Senate AV legislation. It’s not the only path to an end-game to resolve some of these issues for the automotive aftermarket, but it would be a positive step forward. The language would require NHTSA, with the Federal Trade Commission, to put together a stakeholder group on data access and cybersecurity. All of our interest would be represented from the aftermarket as well as other groups, such as car rental companies, dealers, auto manufacturers and insurers.

Important for all of us is that the elections in November could impact the things that we’re talking about today. Even though we had unanimous support of the AV legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, if the House flips—or not—due to the November elections, then we may be moving into 2019 without some type of AV guideline for states and the federal government, so getting it passed before the election is important.

Chesney: I deal with issues related to cybersecurity on a daily basis because our research and development center that is based in Raleigh does not have an internal corporate network. The reason we are so protective of that and don’t have an internal network is because we don’t want potential malware from vehicles — or anything we connect to — to impact or threaten our internal data and vice versa. We teach data security in many of our classes, such as the J2534 class or data network class in which we show the importance of protecting your network internally so that customers are protected.

The real risk for repair shops are your technicians walking in with their smartphones. If at any point they accidentally download malware on their phones elsewhere and then connect to the same network that your scan tools are on, there could be big issues. Those things need to be looked at and validated.

Motor Age: How do you foresee ridesharing services affecting the automotive aftermarket over the next five years?

Chesney: It’s already affecting the miles driven for that group of vehicles. I have a habit of getting in an Uber or Lyft or other rideshare and asking the driver how long they’ve been driving for the company, how many miles they’ve put on their car, and whether they bought it or are leasing it. It’s alarming how many people have leased vehicles for these purposes and put 50-60,000 miles a year on it. For the independent shops, the challenge is marketing to that segment of drivers and attracting them in for regular service so that they can keep value in their vehicle by maintaining it over a period of time.

Meier: GM just announced plans for their autonomous EV-based vehicle for more urban environments, and these types of vehicles will likely be used for rideshare purposes. Down the road that could result in fewer vehicles, but even if there are fewer vehicles, they’ll still be in almost constant use. There’s still going to be plenty of work for the aftermarket to perform, and with the evolving technology, it’s going to be highly skilled and — I hope — highly paying jobs.

Motor Age: A recurring challenge within the auto repair industry is the technician shortage. What are you or your organization doing to build a workforce to meet the demands of today and the future?

Meier: We’ve been talking about the technician shortage since I started in the business 40 years ago. Now it’s really manifesting itself. When shop owners complain about not having enough people in the shop, I invariably ask, “Are you involved in your local school? Are you on the industry advisory board? Are you taking part in helping shape what that educational picture is going to look like?” And invariably the answer is no, they’re not. On the other side of the coin, while there are several exceptional automotive schools and programs across the country, there are also many that are outdated and stuck in the late 70s or mid 80s—whenever the instructor left the bays and transitioned into teaching. That’s an area that needs to be addressed as well.

Chesney: My organization is totally committed to the industry to help bridge the gap that we have today with respect to the technician shortage and the aging workforce and, more importantly, the ever-increasing gap between technology and the skillsets of the techs in the bays. For many years we’ve expected 2 years’ worth of vocational education to prepare a technician effectively to be able to be a competent entry-level technician at a shop. That just isn’t the case and hasn’t been for nearly 20 years.

The most important work right now is with the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF). The education team has been charged with designing a framework of education for all roles within the industry that will provide visibility for those thinking about entering the industry and for those who are already in the industry of the opportunities that are available.

Here’s where we’ve landed currently — we’ve filled out a list of skills that an entry-level tech should possess and be able to do without supervision. We’ve vetted it already with 25 shop owners across the country, and they have validated that we’re on the right track.

The problem that we see with education is that education today is outcome-based. Outcome-based is defined as delivering the content to the student in a way that the student can figure how to apply it in the bay appropriately, but there is no validation that they can do it. Competency-based education, on the other hand, is taking those courses and that content and putting it into action unsupervised in the service bay. That’s where we have to get. We’re taking those entry-level skills and we’re building a list of competencies that apply to those skills and then aligning learning objectives so that curriculum developers can evolve and enhance their current curriculums to accomplish that competency and proof of skill. So when a tech gets a job straight out of vocational school, they can go in and they can show that qualification that, in our mind, should be delivered by ASE. They can show that credential and the shop owner can recognize it and know that that person knows how to change the oil and do a courtesy inspection, etc. We’re actively working on that as we speak.

Redding: For me, professionally, we can’t do this by ourselves. It’s hard. I think this has to be a public-private partnership on developing policy, helping with recruitment and helping us with retention. We have affiliates running excellent apprenticeship programs, but we’re seeing that that’s not enough. They vary wildly and the participation rate of shops is not high enough. From our perspective, we want to do more and we have to develop a better framework of a policy in this area as well as take a bigger look at having state and federal partners in this process.

On another note, on Friday morning of NACE Automechanika Atlanta, we invited schools to come in on the floor of the show. To see these students rush through the doors together was very cool and encouraging. That doesn’t mean that everyone rushing through those doors has plans to be an automotive technician, but just seeing kids looking and being interested in the automotive aftermarket within that age range was very encouraging. We need to be able to build upon and sustain that interest.