CARUSO says EU Data Act rollout still leaves major gaps in connected car data sharing

CARUSO has published its CVFT 5.0 report, saying one year after the EU Data Act became applicable, vehicle manufacturers still show major differences in how they let drivers share connected car data. The findings matter for third-party mobility services that need consistent, scalable access across brands.

Why it matters: - The EU Data Act gives vehicle owners legal rights to access their car data and share it with third parties. - CARUSO says the current rollout is still too inconsistent for multi-brand connected car services to scale. - The report points to a wider market issue: without common data access and usable sharing tools, third-party business models remain hard to grow.

What happened: - CARUSO GmbH published the 5th edition of its Connected Vehicle Field Test, or CVFT 5.0, on October 12, 2026. - The report evaluates how major vehicle manufacturers are implementing the EU Data Act. - CARUSO examined manufacturer solutions from September 2025 to July 2026. - The CVFT was supported by ten leading European industry associations and their members.

The details: - The EU Data Act became applicable on September 12, 2025, as a horizontal regulation aimed at fostering the use of machine-generated data, including data generated in vehicles while driving. - The law places obligations on data holders such as vehicle manufacturers to grant access to that data. - CARUSO found highly heterogeneous implementation across vehicle manufacturers. - Some manufacturers had compliance measures in place in September 2025. - Others followed months later. - Some manufacturers still do not offer solutions that let drivers share data. - CARUSO says third-party service providers need a common data set across manufacturers to build multi-brand use cases. - The EU Commission has provided guidance on the type of data that should be made available to consumers for sharing. - CARUSO found substantial differences in the data points available from different manufacturers. - CARUSO says end users often struggle with apps, portals, forms and emails used to enable sharing. - The report says the process is often neither simple nor intuitive for non-digital natives. - CARUSO warns that business cases based on vehicle data will not scale if user conversion drops off at this stage. - CARUSO found heterogeneous methods for provisioning data and differences in data quality. - The report says scalable and automated use cases require modern streaming technologies and/or APIs rather than web forms, email or downloadable files. - A significant number of vehicle manufacturers still rely on those less automated methods. - The report found major differences in packaging and pricing for third parties. - Prices for access to all available data range from 0.00 euros to more than 30.00 euros per vehicle per month. - Some manufacturers let third parties choose individual data items. - Others sell only predefined bundles of data items.

Between the lines: - The report suggests the EU Data Act has changed the legal framework faster than the commercial and technical infrastructure around it. - That gap may favor manufacturers that can standardize access quickly and disadvantage service providers trying to launch across multiple brands. - The broad association backing also signals that the issue reaches beyond CARUSO's platform business.

What's next: - CARUSO says the CVFT 5.0 report is available free of charge to interested parties. - The company points readers to its Connected Vehicle Field Test 5.0 page for more information: Connected Vehicle Field Test 5.0 page. - CARUSO is likely to use the report to press for more consistent implementation of the EU Data Act across vehicle manufacturers.

The bottom line: - One year into the EU Data Act, CARUSO says the connected vehicle market still lacks the common data access, technical tools and pricing consistency needed for third-party services to scale.