How the figures are made

The source

Every figure is a count of new vehicles registered on Vahan, the national vehicle registration system run by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. Every state and union territory registers vehicles on it. Vehicle Stats India reads the public Vahan dashboard every night, one state at a time, and checks that the states add up to the national total before anything is published.

A registration is counted in the month the vehicle is registered at a transport office (RTO), and in the state of that office. The month in progress is shown on its own and left out of every total until it is complete. Recent months can rise slightly for a few weeks as late registrations arrive; Telangana sometimes reports late.

What is counted

• Two-wheelers: motorcycles, scooters and mopeds (bikes and scooters), including electric ones.
• Three-wheelers: auto-rickshaws for passengers and goods, and e-rickshaws.
• Cars & SUVs: cars, SUVs, MUVs and taxis: what the industry calls passenger vehicles (PV).
• Trucks & buses: goods carriers, buses, school buses, ambulances and other commercial vehicles (CV).

Vahan sorts vehicles into about 70 vehicle classes; each class goes into one of these four types. Tractors, trailers, harvesters, construction equipment and other special-purpose classes are not counted: about 3% of all registrations, almost all tractors and trailers. Six fuels are shown: petrol, diesel, CNG, electric, hybrid and other.

Low-speed electric scooters, with a top speed of 25 km/h or less, need no registration, so Vahan does not count them.

Brands and parent companies

Vahan records each maker’s legal company name, which can change over the years or differ between a maker’s units. These names are grouped into the brands people know, and brands can also be grouped by parent company. Brands are ranked within one vehicle type at a time, never across types, because a scooter maker and a truck maker do not compete.

Vahan does not record models. Where the dashboard shows models, the figures are estimates, each brand’s count split by its usual model mix, and are always labelled as estimates. Every other figure is counted, not estimated.

How to read the numbers

Large numbers use lakh and crore: 1 lakh is 1,00,000 and 1 crore is 1,00,00,000, grouped the Indian way. A change is shown only when the earlier figure is at least 200 registrations, and an electric share only on at least 1,000 registrations of every fuel, so that small numbers do not look like big swings. Registrations follow the festival calendar: the month of Diwali and the month after are usually the busiest of the year, and Diwali moves between October and November.

Questions

Are registrations the same as sales?

Not quite. A registration is a new vehicle registered at a transport office (RTO), usually within days of being bought, so registrations are the closest public count of retail sales. They differ from the factory dispatches (wholesale) that makers announce each month, which count vehicles sent to dealers.

Why do these figures differ from FADA or company sales figures?

Companies announce dispatches from their factories to dealers (wholesale), so their monthly figures run ahead of or behind registrations. FADA, the federation of dealers, also reports retail registrations from Vahan, but with its own coverage, grouping of brands and release date, so its totals can differ a little from these.

Where do these figures come from?

From Vahan, the national vehicle registration system run by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. Vehicle Stats India reads its public Vahan dashboard every night. Every state and union territory reports to Vahan; Telangana sometimes sends its figures late, so its most recent months may be revised up.

How up to date are they?

Updated 11 November 2026. The figures cover every full month up to October 2026. November 2026 is still being counted, so it is left out of every total. Recent months can rise slightly for a few weeks as late registrations arrive.

Which vehicles are counted?

Two-wheelers: motorcycles, scooters and mopeds (bikes and scooters), including electric ones. Three-wheelers: auto-rickshaws for passengers and goods, and e-rickshaws. Cars & SUVs: cars, SUVs, MUVs and taxis: what the industry calls passenger vehicles (PV). Trucks & buses: goods carriers, buses, school buses, ambulances and other commercial vehicles (CV). Tractors, trailers and construction equipment are not counted (about 3% of all registrations).

What is the electric share?

The percentage of new vehicles registered that are electric, for the same vehicle type, place and period: 10% means 1 in 10. Every fuel counts in the total: petrol, diesel, CNG, hybrid, electric and other. Low-speed electric scooters (top speed 25 km/h or less) need no registration, so they are not counted.

What do lakh and crore mean?

1 lakh is 1,00,000 (one hundred thousand). 1 crore is 1,00,00,000 (ten million). Numbers are grouped the Indian way: 12,34,567.

Is this an official government site?

No. Vehicle Stats India is independent. It reads the public Vahan dashboard and shows the same figures in a simpler way.

How to cite

Vehicle Stats India, “<page title>”, figures from Vahan (Ministry of Road Transport & Highways), updated <date>, <page address>. Each page ends with its own citation. Please credit Vahan as the source of the figures.

Independence

Vehicle Stats India is an independent site, not a government service, and is not linked to any vehicle maker or dealer. Brand names and logos belong to their owners. India map by Victor Cazanave (SVG Maps), CC BY 4.0.