Published: April 2024 | Category: Nationwide statistics , Statistics & surveys | Audience: General
The New Zealand vehicle fleet open data provides a point-in-time ‘snapshot’ of all vehicles currently registered in New Zealand. The data relates to currently registered vehicles as recorded on the Motor Vehicle Register (MVR) and is updated monthly, so data is accurate as at the end of the month previous to when it’s accessed. This data is being released in an open format in line with Open and Transparent Government principles.
For specialists or industry groups who prefer raw data ie not algorithmically cleaned, please see New Zealand vehicle fleet – raw open data for specialist use.
New Zealand vehicle fleet – raw open data for specialist use
Open Data Portal
The data is available for online access via the Open Data Portal.
Open Data Portal(external link)
Motor vehicle registrations – dashboard and open data
The motor vehicle registrations dashboard shows all vehicles registered in New Zealand for the first time, during the most recent calendar month.
Motor vehicle registrations – dashboard and open data(external link)
Fuel consumption and synthetic greenhouse gases
As of January 2022, the MVR dataset now contains information on fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. More details below.
The New Zealand Vehicle Fleet Open Data provides information about currently registered vehicles as recorded on the Motor Vehicle Register (MVR) at the end of each month.
Registration is the process where we add a vehicle’s details to the Motor Vehicle Register and issue its number plates. This should not be confused with vehicle licensing, which is sometimes referred to as ‘rego’.
The data includes:
Fuel consumption (litres / 100km) is for cars driving in urban areas (Column FC_Urban), on motorways (Column FC_Extra_Urban) and a combination of both (Column FC_Combined). Values range from 1 to 60.
Greenhouse gas emissions are the SGGs (synthetic greenhouse gases) that airconditioning units produce.
The data is added to the MVR when a new or used vehicle is first registered in New Zealand.
Description of attributes for fuel consumption (27) and synthetic greenhouse gas (34)(external link)
For more information about the content of these files, please see the metadata below.
This data is provided in comma separated value ‘.csv’ files to meet open data standards.
The data relates to the current vehicle fleet, as at the end of the current month.
To manage the size of the files and make them easier to use, we have split the data into several files – one for each vehicle year from 1990-CurrentYear (inclusive).
All data prior to 1990 is in a single zipped .csv file:
Prior to 2007, vehicle year was the year of manufacture, model year, or year of first registration in New Zealand or internationally.
From January 2007 vehicle year is year of first registration in New Zealand or internationally.
We have also provided a zipped .csv containing all vehicle years:
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A note about the 'Vehicle data – all vehicle years' file Please be aware that when unzipped this is a very large file and some systems may have difficulty opening it. It contains more than 5 million rows, and therefore won’t work in Excel. However, the file is in CSV format, and will work in:
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These figures will be updated monthly. The data is ‘as at’ the end of the previous month.
Many fields on the Motor Vehicle Register (MVR) are free text fields and may therefore be subject to spelling mistakes and other human error. While we have algorithmically cleaned the data to correct identified errors, it should be noted that due to the large number of vehicles on the register some information may not have been corrected in this data. Additionally, some variables may be subject to differences in how details are recorded – for example, manufacturers release a variety of sub-models and these may not be referred to, or recorded into the system, uniformly.
As the following variables are infrequently recorded on the MVR there are a large number of missing values in this dataset for these variables. Missing values may be displayed as a blank field or zero (in the case of height and weight). The affected variables are:
The New Zealand vehicle fleet – raw open data for specialist use provides a version of the New Zealand vehicle fleet open data that has not been algorithmically cleaned. Other than in very specialist circumstances, we recommend using the cleaned version of the data in which identified errors have been corrected.
Data quality statement: An entry certifier enters the data manually into the MVR when someone first registers a new or used vehicle in New Zealand.
Data quality caveats: The data is verified at time of entry, but there is potential for data to be entered incorrectly. The below links are used to determine fuel consumption and CO2 emissions that are then entered when registering vehicle. This is mandatory and not optional. Data is first added to landata.
View the metadata [CSV, 10 KB]
The MVR dataset now contains information on fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. More details above.
Read the questions and answers (2018) [PDF, 385 KB]
While Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency has taken reasonable care in compiling the information above and in the .csv files, the information is provided on an ‘as is, where is’ basis and the Transport Agency will not be liable for any action taken on the basis of the information. For further information see the Waka Kotahi disclaimer and the text of the CC-BY International 4.0 Licence.
Waka Kotahi disclaimer
CC-BY International 4.0 Licence(external link)
This data relates to vehicles not people. We have included some information about where the person in whose name the vehicle is registered resides. This is based on the most recent information we have about their physical address. To make sure it isn’t possible to identify a person in the data, we have provided this at Territorial Authority (TA) level. A TA is a broad geographical area defined under the Local Government Act 2002 as a city council or district council. There are 67 TAs consisting of 12 city councils, 53 districts, Auckland Council and Chatham Island Council.
Vehicles belonging to individuals with a confidential listing have not been included.
We have restricted the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to the first 11 characters as these are generic and do not identify a unique vehicle.
