VIN Basics Blog

Look at any modern vehicle on the market today, and you'll find it loaded with technology. Heated seats, adaptive cruise control, wireless Apple CarPlay, heads-up displays, and the list goes on. That abundance of features should be exciting for buyers, but if they end up staring at a vehicle detail page that reads like a spec sheet with no hierarchy, no emphasis, and no signal about what actually matters, it can discourage them in their quest for the ideal vehicle. This information overload is a quiet, but very real issue in automotive retail, and it may be costing dealers conversions they are unaware they're losing.

A modern vehicle can have hundreds of distinct features across audio, safety, comfort, connectivity, and performance. Without a way to prioritize them, every feature gets equal value, which is effectively the same as no value at all. Buyers scroll past features that would have closed the deal because those descriptions were not readily visible in a prominent place.

Usage-Based Insurance (UBI) is not a new concept. In fact, we wrote a blog article about UBI back in 2015. Now, over 10 years later, UBI has shifted from a niche to an industry standard, with more than 21 million U.S. policyholders having signed up to share their telematics data as of the most recent survey in 2024. (source: Carrier Management).

Progressive and GMAC were the first to experiment with UBI back in 1997. While the business model of charging premiums based on driver behavior, vehicle mileage, and driving frequency made a lot of sense for some consumers, it took many years for other insurance carriers to adopt usage-based insurance.

Fleet Management Systems (FMIS) and telematics platforms are no longer just about tracking assets — they’re about driving smarter decisions across every stage of the vehicle lifecycle.

Fleet owners and operators expect their systems to seamlessly load vehicles, know what’s in the fleet, manage service schedules and recalls, surface operational insights, and support informed decisions when it’s time to sell or replace assets.

At the center of all that capability? Accurate, reliable vehicle data.

Here’s how DataOne Software’s industry-leading automotive data powers both FMIS and telematics solution providers to deliver the precision, trust, and insight that today’s fleets demand.

DataOne’s VIN Decoding 101 article series laid the groundwork by breaking down what information is encoded in a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), and what vehicle information you can expect to decode from a commercial VIN decoder. Now it’s time to take things to the next level. VIN Decoding 201 dives deeper into the complexities behind those 17 characters and why not all VIN decoding solutions are created equal when it comes to obtaining a highly granular level of detail in a consumable format. We’ll also look at how advanced VIN decoding powers today’s automotive ecosystem, influencing everything from vehicle merchandising, maintenance and repair to insurance, fleet management, and beyond. We hope the articles in this series will help better inform your decision in vetting your potential vehicle data partner.

Domestic pickup trucks continue to dominate the U.S. automotive market, with Ford leading the pack year over year. The Ford F-Series has been the best-selling truck line in the country for decades, with approximately 732,100 units sold in 2024 alone. These popular vehicles are also among the most highly customizable on the market, offering a wide range of trims, packages, and configurations, which makes accurate, build-level data more critical than ever.

This post has been republished with updates since its original publication date of December 2011.

It is not uncommon for some of the people who express interest in our VIN data to have little experience with automotive data in the past. They may be new to the company/position, or they may be looking to apply an existing business model in a new way that requires a VIN decoder or vehicle data. Many times, these people are not quite sure what to expect to get in return for decoding 17-digit VINs. Below is a list of 10 things that you can expect to be returned when decoding US passenger and light-duty vehicle identification numbers.

There’s nothing like the smell of a brand-new car, but with the average cost of new vehicles now sitting at  ~$50K, many consumers have opted for used vehicles as an alternative in recent years. New vehicle prices have spiked since the COVID-19 pandemic, with average transaction prices remaining nearly $11k higher than pre-pandemic back when average transaction prices for new vehicles were ~$37k. In this article, we will discuss some of the key drivers behind increased vehicle prices, how it has impacted the auto industry, and why a comprehensive vehicle data solution is even more important for the automotive businesses impacted.

Data security failures have become a paramount challenge for the automotive industry to address, with the CDK ransomware attack over the summer highlighting the far-reaching financial and reputational consequences of suffering a critical breach. According to threat intelligence provider SOCRadar, automotive businesses will continue to be an appealing target for cybercrime, because of the vulnerabilities inherent in necessary interconnectivity.

Have you been tasked with picking the best vehicle data and VIN decoding solution for your new business venture or a new product at your current company? There are many things you need to consider when choosing a VIN data solution, such as the depth and breadth of vehicle data coverage, accuracy of the data, pricing, and, as discussed in this article, delivery options.

No manufacturing process is perfect, an obvious fact that the automotive industry knows too well, with nearly 900  recalls affecting over  34 million cars alone in 2023. No part of a car, truck, or trailer is immune from an error, and that includes the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN).