Question 1

Where can I get monthly U.S. new car sales data?

Accepted Answer

The U.S. Census Monthly Retail Trade Survey publishes sales, inventories and inventory-to-sales ratios for NAICS 441 motor vehicle and parts dealers every month from January 1992 to present, split into new car dealers (44111), used car dealers (44112) and parts stores (4413), seasonally adjusted and unadjusted. MARTS advance estimates arrive roughly five weeks after the reference month; June 2026 reads $143,986M in adjusted sales against $268,495M in inventories, a 1.86 ratio.

Question 2

How many car dealerships are there in the United States by county?

Accepted Answer

Census County Business Patterns counts establishments, mid-March employment and first-quarter plus annual payroll for NAICS 44111 new car dealers and 44112 used car dealers at county, metro, place, ZIP, state and congressional-district level. Reference year 2023 was released 26 June 2025 and CSV series extend back to 1986. One Alabama county row shows 16 new car dealer establishments employing 814 people at $56.7M annual payroll, with noise flags marking each figure's precision band.

Question 3

Is there a free VIN decoding API?

Accepted Answer

Yes - NHTSA's vPIC decodes VINs and enumerates global vehicle manufacturers, makes, models, WMI codes and equipment plant codes with no API key required, returning JSON, XML or CSV with up to 154 fields per decode. Datadory delivers it alongside the rest of the automotive retail collection, typed and keyed to your cadence. It shares the slice's top quality score of 10 with the Census monthly retail trade series.

Question 4

Where can I download UK new car registration statistics?

Accepted Answer

Two official routes. SMMT's Vehicle Data Hub publishes monthly car, LCV, EV, HGV and bus registrations by marque, fuel type and model on the fourth working day of each month - July 2026 read 156,571 total registrations, up 11.71%, with Volkswagen leading at 14,054 units and 8.98% share. The Department for Transport's VEH01-VEH03 collection adds DVLA-based first registrations from January 2001 for Great Britain and licensed stock from 1994 Q4.

Question 5

What data exists on the UK vehicle parc?

Accepted Answer

SMMT's annual Motorparc breaks the vehicles-in-use census down by body type, fuel, region, segment and model across 12 areas. DfT's VEH tables add licensed stock from 1994 Q4 by CO2 band, tax class, keepership and age since first use, reaching down to LSOA geography - the make/model data files run to roughly 900,000 rows, with VEH0150 tracking licensed UK cars at 387.0 thousand in a single monthly snapshot.

Question 6

Are dealership financial benchmarks available?

Accepted Answer

Two complementary layers. NADA Data publishes the only dedicated dealership P&L source in the collection: an annual profile covering dealership counts, sales, employment, payroll and department-level results for new, used, service and parts and body shop operations across all 50 states - California's 1,334 franchised dealers average $115.0M in sales and 83 employees. Census ARTS adds the statistical counterpart: gross margin, purchases, e-commerce and operating expenses for motor vehicle dealers back to 1993, with 2023 receipts at $1,608,512M industry-wide.

Question 7

Which datasets track electric vehicle adoption?

Accepted Answer

For Europe, ACEA's hub puts EU battery-electric new car registrations at 1,220,890 units in Jan-Jun 2026, up 40.5% year over year, within a 5,896,683-unit total market up 5.7%. For the UK, SMMT's monthly registrations split fuel type and DfT's VEH collection counts plug-in and ultra-low-emission vehicles in the licensed stock. The EPA Fuel Economy Dataset adds the specification side: MPG, CO2, engine and fuel type for every 1984-2026 model year vehicle by make and model.

Question 8

How do I compare car sales across countries?

Accepted Answer

Four records cover the map: ACEA publishes monthly passenger-car and quarterly commercial-vehicle registrations for the EU, EFTA and UK; SMMT covers Britain in depth; GoodCarBadCar compiles historical sales for the US from 2006, Canada from 2012 and more than 180 other markets; OICA adds annual world production statistics by country from 1999. Japan's e-Stat portal rounds out Asia with METI and MLIT production and ownership surveys. All arrive through Datadory on one delivery contract.

Automotive Retail Data: Dealer Sales, Inventories, Footprints and the Vehicle Parc

The manifest

U.S. Census Monthly Retail Trade Survey - Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers

U.S. Census Annual Retail Trade Survey / AIES - Motor Vehicle Dealers

U.S. Census County Business Patterns - Automobile Dealers Establishments

Uk Dft Vehicle Licensing Statistics Collection Veh01 Veh03

UK ONS Retail Sales Index - Automotive Fuel and Non-Store Time Series

SMMT UK Vehicle Data Hub - Registrations and Vehicles in Use

The lay of the water

Pick your catch

U.S. Census Monthly Retail Trade Survey - Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers

U.S. Census Annual Retail Trade Survey / AIES - Motor Vehicle Dealers

U.S. Census County Business Patterns - Automobile Dealers Establishments

Department for Transport

UK ONS Retail Sales Index - Automotive Fuel and Non-Store Time Series

SMMT UK Vehicle Data Hub - Registrations and Vehicles in Use

NADA Data - Annual Dealership Financial Profile and Market Reports

data.gov Federated Catalog - Automotive Retail Datasets

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Frequently asked questions

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