From the DVSA MOT record
Britain’s garage
Every new plate since September 2001, region by region. Press play and watch diesel rise and fall, electric arrive, and silver fade to grey.
76September 2026 on, so far
15%
of 76-plate vehicles run on diesel, across Great Britain
Highest: Northampton and Luton 23%. Lowest: London 7%.
The same scale for every plate year, so a shade always means the same number.
Great Britain
Tap a region on the map for its own figures.
459,095 76-plate vehicles on the record
Fuel
- Petrol 21%
- Diesel 15%
- Hybrid 38%
- Electric 26%
Paint
- Grey 29%
- Black 24%
- White 20%
- Blue 14%
- Green 7%
- Silver 6%
Top makes
- Volkswagen7%
- Ford6%
- Mercedes-Benz5%
- MOT in date today
- Too new to tell
- Typical miles a year
- Too few readings yet
Great Britain
Diesel rose from 29% of 51-plate vehicles to a peak of 55% of 61-plate ones, then fell to 15% by the 76 plate.
Every region, every plate year
Diesel for each region, one column per plate year from 2001 on the left to today on the right. The outlined column is the year on the map.
What the map can and cannot tell you
- A region is where the plate was issued, not where the car lives. The first two letters of a plate name the DVLA office area it was first registered in, usually through a local dealer. Many cars have moved since.
- These are today’s records, grouped by plate year. Each column is the vehicles first registered in that half-year that the DVSA holds a record for now, with their fuel, paint and make, and their MOT as it stands today. It is not a count of what was on the road back then.
- Only plates from September 2001 on. Older plates show their region differently, and private plates moved onto another car say nothing about where or when it was first registered. 1,855,614 current-style plates on cars registered outside their plate’s half-year were left out for that reason.
- MOT figures wait for a plate year to settle. A first MOT falls due at three years old, and the record takes about a year more to catch up, so the newest plate years show no MOT figure yet rather than one that looks far too low.
- Northern Ireland is not included. Its vehicles are tested by the DVA, not the DVSA, so they are not on this record.
- Region borders are approximate. The DVLA closed its local offices in 2013 and never published the areas each one served, so each council is drawn in the office region it historically belonged to.
- Vehicles, not just cars. Vans, motorbikes and motorhomes are counted too: everything the DVSA tests with an MOT.
62,286,990 vehicles counted from the DVSA MOT record of 2026-11-01. Checked against the DVSA’s live records: for 76 vehicles read back one by one, the make, fuel, paint and registration date matched 97% of the time. Boundaries: Office for National Statistics, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2025.
Want one plate year in depth? Each has its own guide, like the 76 plate. For any make, model or year across the whole record, try the trends.