🚗 NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Decoder Scraper

🚀 Decode any US VIN and browse the NHTSA make / model catalog in seconds. Pull full vehicle specs from a 17-character VIN, list every make in the vPIC database, or enumerate models and vehicle types per make. No API key, no per-request fees, no manual CSV parsing.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-23 · 📊 30+ fields per record · 🚗 vPIC catalog · 🔢 4 modes · 🇺🇸 US market specs

The NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Decoder Scraper wraps the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Vehicle Product Information Catalog (vPIC), the authoritative US source for VIN decoding and make / model reference data. Each decoded VIN returns make, model, model year, manufacturer, body class, trim, series, engine model, horsepower, cylinder count, displacement, fuel type, transmission style, drive type, plant location, door count, and dozens of additional specification fields.

The catalog covers every make and model sold in the United States including foreign manufacturers (Honda, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes), domestic legacy nameplates (Ford, GM, Chrysler), and modern EV makers (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid). Use this Actor to validate insurance applications, populate a dealer-inventory database, enrich telematics streams, or build a vehicle-specs API of your own. Output exports as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🛑 NHTSA Recalls is a separate scraper. This Actor returns vehicle specifications only. For safety recall lookups, use the dedicated NHTSA Vehicle Recalls scraper.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Auto insurers, dealer management systems, fleet operators, telematics platforms, automotive marketplaces, used-car dealers, vehicle-history reporters	VIN decode and validation, dealer inventory enrichment, insurance underwriting, fleet specification tracking, telematics device pairing, vehicle-classification analytics

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📋 What the NHTSA vPIC Decoder does

Four catalog modes in a single Actor:

• 🔢 Decode VIN (decodeVin). Full specification decode from a 17-character VIN, optionally hinted by model year.
• 🏭 All Makes (makes). Enumerate every make in the vPIC catalog with make ID and name.
• 🚙 Models for Make (modelsForMake). List every model for a given make name.
• 🚐 Vehicle Types for Make (vehicleTypesForMake). List the vehicle-type classifications the make produces.

Each decoded VIN includes the canonical make, model, year, manufacturer name and ID, body class, trim, series, engine model, horsepower, cylinder count, fuel type, transmission style, drive type, plant city / state / country, door count, displacement, and the vPIC decode result codes.

💡 Why it matters: vPIC is the only free, comprehensive VIN decoder for the US market. Commercial alternatives charge per VIN lookup. Building your own integration means handling the underlying vPIC service contracts, partial-VIN edge cases, and per-mode response shapes by hand. This Actor skips all of that.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded vehicle-decode dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
mode	string	"decodeVin"	One of decodeVin, makes, modelsForMake, vehicleTypesForMake.
vins	array of string	["5UXWX7C5*BA"]	17-character VINs. Only used in decodeVin mode.
make	string	"honda"	Make name. Used by modelsForMake and vehicleTypesForMake modes.
modelYear	integer	null	Optional model-year hint for VIN decoding (improves accuracy).

Example: decode three VINs with model-year hints.

{
    "maxItems": 10,
    "mode": "decodeVin",
    "vins": [
        "5UXWX7C5*BA",
        "1HGCM82633A004352",
        "5YJ3E1EA7KF398765"
    ],
    "modelYear": 2019
}

Example: list every model Tesla has produced.

{
    "maxItems": 50,
    "mode": "modelsForMake",
    "make": "tesla"
}

⚠️ Good to Know: vPIC accepts both full 17-character VINs and "VIN patterns" using * as a wildcard. Partial VINs return less complete decode results. For maximum accuracy, supply a 17-character VIN plus the model year hint.

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📊 Output

Each record contains up to 30+ fields depending on the mode. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🎯 mode	string	"decodeVin"
🔢 vin	string | null	"5UXWX7C5*BA"
🏭 make	string | null	"BMW"
🚙 model	string | null	"X3"
📆 modelYear	string | null	"2011"
🏢 manufacturer	string | null	"BMW MANUFACTURING CO., LLC"
🆔 manufacturerId	string | null	"962"
🚗 vehicleType	string | null	"MULTIPURPOSE PASSENGER VEHICLE (MPV)"
🚪 bodyClass	string | null	"Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV)/Multi-Purpose Vehicle (MPV)"
🏷️ trim	string | null	"xDrive35i"
🏷️ series	string | null	"X3"
⚙️ engineModel	string | null	"N55"
🐎 engineHP	string | null	"300"
🔥 engineCylinders	string | null	"6"
⛽ fuelType	string | null	"Gasoline"
🔧 transmissionStyle	string | null	"Automatic"
🛞 driveType	string | null	"AWD/All Wheel Drive"
🏭 plantCity	string | null	"Spartanburg"
🏛️ plantCountry	string | null	"UNITED STATES (USA)"
🏛️ plantState	string | null	"SOUTH CAROLINA"
🏢 plantCompanyName	string | null	"BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC"
🚪 doors	string | null	"4"
📏 displacementL	string | null	"3.0"
🆔 makeId	number | null	448
🆔 modelId	number | null	1782
🆔 vehicleTypeId	number | null	7
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-23T16:00:00.000Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🔢	Full-spec VIN decoding. Make, model, year, engine, transmission, drive, plant, body class, trim, series, and more from one 17-char VIN.
🏭	Catalog browsing. List every make and every model per make for inventory autocomplete and dropdowns.
🚐	Vehicle types per make. Power "what does this manufacturer build" filters.
🆓	Free upstream source. NHTSA vPIC is no-key, no-quota.
⚡	Fast. Dozens of VINs per minute, batched server-side.
🔁	Always fresh. Every run hits the latest published vPIC catalog.
🚫	No authentication. No API key, no signup.

📊 The NHTSA vPIC catalog is cited by insurance providers, state DMVs, automotive marketplaces, and Carfax-style report services across the US.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ NHTSA vPIC Decoder (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	US market full catalog	Live per run	VIN / make / model / vehicle type	⚡ 2 min
Commercial VIN decoder APIs	$$ per VIN	US + global	Live	Vendor-defined	⏳ Hours
Self-hosted vPIC clone	Free	US	Manual rebuild	None	🐢 Days
Manual NHTSA web form	Free	US	Live	One-at-a-time	🕒 Variable

Pick this Actor when you want free batched VIN decoding plus catalog enumeration, all exportable as CSV / Excel / JSON / XML.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Decoder Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick a mode (decodeVin / makes / modelsForMake / vehicleTypesForMake), list inputs.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

🛡️ Auto Insurance Validate VINs on quote applications Auto-populate underwriting spec fields Detect VIN-rebadge fraud via mismatch checks Tier rating by engine HP, fuel type, drive type	🚙 Dealer Management Inventory enrichment for used-car listings Auto-fill new-listing specification fields Trim / series autocomplete in dealer DMS Reference data for compliance reports
🚚 Fleet & Telematics Pair OBD-II devices with correct vehicle profiles Spec-aware maintenance scheduling Fuel-type fleet composition reports Driver-vehicle assignment validation	📊 Automotive Marketplaces Listing validation pipelines Make / model dropdown population Cross-listing duplicate detection Body-class faceted search

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🔌 Automating NHTSA vPIC Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Nightly catalog refreshes keep dealer-management dropdowns and underwriting reference data in sync.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

VIN decoding powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic transparency, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Vehicle-emission research linking VIN to engine specs Coursework on automotive data modeling Reproducible market-composition research Crash-data joins via VIN-to-spec lookups	🎨 Personal and creative Personal car-spec history projects Indie buyer-guide tools that decode listing VINs Side projects mapping VINs to factory-locations Hobbyist car-meet dashboards
🤝 Non-profit and civic Donated-vehicle program validation Vehicle-safety advocacy research Investigative journalism on dealer fraud Public-records VIN audits	🧪 Experimentation Train classifiers mapping VIN patterns to body class Prototype agents that summarize a VIN history Build "spec diff" tools comparing two VINs Test ETL pipelines on automotive datasets

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Pick a mode (decodeVin, makes, modelsForMake, vehicleTypesForMake), provide your inputs (VINs or a make name), and click Start. The Actor hits NHTSA vPIC and emits one structured record per result.

📏 How accurate is the data?

This Actor mirrors NHTSA vPIC exactly. Decode results, make / model lists, and vehicle types come straight from the upstream catalog. vPIC is the same dataset NHTSA uses for safety-data joins, so it is considered the US authoritative source.

🔢 Does it accept partial VINs?

Yes. vPIC accepts VIN patterns using * as a wildcard (for example 5UXWX7C5*BA). Patterns return less complete decodes than full 17-character VINs.

📆 Why use a model-year hint?

Vehicle Identification Numbers reuse year codes on a 30-year cycle. Supplying modelYear removes ambiguity between, for example, a 1993 and a 2023 vehicle that share a VIN year character.

🛑 Does this include safety recalls?

No. This Actor returns vehicle specifications only. Safety recall lookups are served by the separate NHTSA Vehicle Recalls scraper.

🔁 How often is the catalog refreshed?

NHTSA updates vPIC continuously as manufacturers submit new model data. Every run of this Actor pulls the most recent catalog available.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to trigger nightly catalog refreshes for dealer-management dropdowns or to batch-decode incoming insurance applications.

⚖️ Is this data legal to use?

Yes. NHTSA data is in the public domain in the United States. You can use, redistribute, and embed it in your own products without restriction.

💼 Can I use this data commercially?

Yes. Public-domain US government data is free for commercial use.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan to use this Actor?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs (10 records per run). A paid plan lifts the limit.

🆘 What if I need help?

Our support team is here to help. Contact us through the Apify platform or use the Tally form linked below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Decoder Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe decoded VINs into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push decoded VINs into your underwriting system, or fan results out to a downstream DMS.

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🔗 Recommended Actors

• 🛑 NHTSA Vehicle Recalls Scraper - Active US safety recalls by VIN, make, or model
• 🚗 Kelley Blue Book Scraper - US vehicle valuation data
• 🚙 Cars For Sale Scraper - US used-car listings
• 🚜 CommercialTruckTrader Scraper - US commercial truck listings
• 📈 AutoTrader Scraper - US auto-market listings

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more automotive-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the US Department of Transportation. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available NHTSA vPIC data is collected.