How many on the road?

Notes about this data

The majority of variables reported are recorded by DVLA for administrative purposes only and any errors can take time to be resolved, especially if they do not impact the taxation or keepership of the vehicle. Common inconsistencies include:

• model and fuel information
• fuel and engine size

Due to the encoding system used for makes and models, data can be missing for a variety of reasons. These include:

• imported vehicles not usually sold in the UK
• older vehicles manufactured before 1972
• rare versions of models
• new vehicles when the code lookup has not yet been updated

All information on this site originates from vehicle licensing statistics released by the Department for Transport and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in the UK.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Generic model

Generic model is a grouping of models to help compare models on the road. Manufacturers vary in their approach on how many model versions they give a particular range of vehicles. For example, there are currently 3 model versions for Tesla Model 3, but there are over 800 model versions for Ford Fiesta.

Missing or incorrect details

The limitations of these make and model statistics are not errors in the DVLA database, but issues with the statistical process used.

If a vehicle keeper believes that there is a specific error on the V5 document for their own vehicle, they should contact the DVLA directly to have this corrected.

Vehicle manufacturers submit vehicle information at point of first registration and DVLA do not change it unless prompted. This means that most mistakes in the final data are usually because of administrative errors made by the manufacturer. Other mistakes can occur when vehicles are registered manually using a paper form as there is opportunity for typographic errors.

Other issues include

• vehicles registered before 1963 are less likely to have a specific model name or any model name at all. Model names would only have existed if the manufacturer created one at the time
• model names are not designed to fully describe the vehicle, so different “marks” or trims might be included as one model name, despite being different vehicles (for example Volkswagen Golf)
• imported vehicles (that have not been on general sale in the UK) would not have a code available. DVLA attempts to find a near match but usually end up setting them to “model missing”
• some smaller vehicle manufacturers are not part of the encoding scheme, so their vehicles are registered with the correct make code, but do not have any model codes
• multistage build vehicles (for example motorhomes) are likely to have a mix of makes and models from the base and final manufacturers

Any vehicle of a given model name which cannot be found in the data will most likely be included in the missing categories.