Automotive market data is the data that the car industry plans and sells with: how many vehicles of each model are registered, forecasts of future sales and production, the specifications of every model, and the history of individual vehicles. This page uses the United States as its example, because the best-known vehicle history service is used mainly there, by buyers of used cars.
The data has two levels. The first is the market as a whole. Carmakers, parts suppliers and banks buy registration counts by model, region and month. They also buy forecasts of how many cars each factory will build over the next several years. A parts supplier uses these to decide how many brake units to make for a model that launches in 2028. Investors read the same figures through financial data terminals.
The second level is a single vehicle. In the US, every car has a 17-character vehicle identification number, or VIN. A vehicle history company collects records that carry the VIN from many sources: state motor vehicle departments, insurers, police accident reports, auctions and service garages. It joins them into one report. The report shows the number of owners, the odometer readings over the years, any accidents that were reported, and whether an insurer ever declared the car a total loss.
Consider a buyer in Ohio who is looking at a 2019 sedan on a used car marketplace, priced at $16,500. The listing links to the vehicle history report. The report shows three owners, a service every year, and odometer readings that rise steadily to 58,000 miles. But it also shows a minor accident in 2022, reported by an insurer. The buyer asks the dealer for the repair bill, and offers $15,800. Dealers use the same reports when they buy cars at an online car auction, to avoid cars with hidden damage. Lenders and insurers use them to price car loans and policies.
The hard part is matching. Each source writes dates, mileage and damage in its own format, and some records have typing errors in the VIN. The data company must clean the records and match them correctly every day, as every data as a service business must.
Location data is often joined in as well. With a digital map, a carmaker can see in which areas registrations of each model are growing.
In India, the picture is different. A used car buyer usually checks the registration details recorded by the state transport department, and the inspection report of the used car platform, rather than one history report.