I just realized that with my knowledge on the subject, I can actually explain what the article is actually all about and such (oh fuck, who keeps getting grandpa drunk?)
So it all starts at the tail end of the 70's, during the gas crisis America came to realize two points: 1) 3 ton land yachts that get less than 10 mpg downhill isn't so smart in a world where gasoline isn't a guarantee and 2) that maybe putting in a poisonous metal into hundreds of millions of cars on the road is probably not the greatest thing for people's health (tailpipe emissions at this time were so bad that they literally killed plant life along major roads and freeways, on top of the fact that they were only adding in the lead because engines were so poorly designed/inefficient that having noncombustible metal in the gasoline mixture was the only way to prevent the engine from igniting the mixture too early and blowing up the engine). So along comes the idea of trying to reduce these emissions in the form Catalytic converters, which use specific metals and heat to turn the emissions from poison into a mixture of air and water (water gets formed in the conversion process, this is why your tailpipes drip sometimes and you get puddles of water underneath running vehicles). Unfortunately, as the tech was still in its infancy at the time, cars from the early days of emission control were fucking awful (it's why you still see a lot of older mechands swear by full on cutting out the cat, because in their experience with these first lemons that actually did work), both in terms of performance and the fact that these emission parts were being detroyed at an alarming rate. Turns out if you want to control emissions, it might be helpful if you knew more about what the car was doing than just the temperature of the coolant.
A decade or so of this later, America passes a law requiring all vehicle manufacturers to implement systems to both monitor the engine and emission control systems, and for these monitors to talk to a central computer that you could get codes that tell you what in particular was going wrong. This is OBD-I (On Board Diagnostics), and came about in the late 80's, early 90's or so, but it quickly caused problems, because shocking no one, car makers kinda suck. Since they didn't specify how the OBD should work, it quickly became the wild west where every manufacturer had different systems in place. Some had the precursor to the current system, with a direct connection to the computer via an electrical connection to a diag tool, some had you litreally do a special sequence if actions before the car would blink/flash out a Morse code with a light to tell you the codes contained in the computer, and all systems were unique between manufacturers to the point where you had to get several different, specific tools to communicate with the vehicle.
So America passes a new law around 1996 or so, which turns into the current system still being used today, OBD-II. Unlike the previous generation, they decided to make this law mostly about standarizing the whole thing; the connector to access the vehicles computers is a specificly shaped 127-pin connector, that has to be a within a certain distance of the stewrong wheel but most importantly, it set a standardized code system for emission and engine performance related to emission. So for instance, the code that gets generated when the vehicle is running too rich on a Ford F150 is the same as a Honda Civic. This is how you get $20 code readers from your local auto parts store and (mostly) figure out why your check engine light came on.
However, and here we finally catch up to the present with this bill, is that as some of you eagle-eyed users may have already seen (and due to the fact that, again, car makers kinda suck) is that this standardized code list only applies to emission and engine systems that deal specificly with emissions, which meant that for everything else it was up to manufacturers choice, so every other computer (one some cars these days they can get into the double digits) put out codes unique to that specific auto maker. Plus, you need specific software in the form of auto maker provided diag tools that are able to communicate with that brand of vehicle. TheyThis is why that $20 code reader won't tell you why your rear window won't roll down, but I can, in about 5 mins, find out that the motor electrical power circuit is open. What it looks like to me is that this specific bill will make it so auto makers have to make this open-source, which off course pissed of auto makers because the auto tool industry is an insanely lucrative business, and if they were forced to offer their software out like that will cost them all the sales they make with their diagnostic scan tools.
Holy shit, what a long mess of words...
USA
