April 2026 Update: Full DVLA Intelligence, Running Costs, and MOT Exemptions

Everything DVLA knows about your car. Now inside MotorLedger.

Five updates shipped in MotorLedger this month. Three expand what a single DVLA lookup captures. One adds a brand-new Running Costs tab. The fifth teaches MotorLedger to recognise MOT exemptions automatically — no more false reminders for classic cars or new vehicles that don’t need a test yet.

Here’s what’s new, in order of impact.

1. Running Costs tab (new)

Track what your cars actually cost to own.

The new Running Costs tab calculates your total annual cost and cost per mile across every vehicle in your collection. Enter a handful of numbers once, and MotorLedger does the rest:

• Fuel — enter MPG and price per litre. MotorLedger multiplies by your actual logged mileage.
• Servicing — enter service interval and typical cost. MotorLedger projects your yearly spend.
• Tyres — cost per tyre and expected life in miles. Calculated against your real usage.
• Insurance — pulled automatically from the policy documents you’ve already uploaded.

For collectors with multiple vehicles, this is the feature that changes how you think about your collection. Not as a hobby expense. As a portfolio with measurable carrying costs.

The daily driver costs £0.38 per mile. The weekend Porsche costs £1.64. The 1983 Ferrari that only comes out twice a year? £4.20 per mile when you actually drive it. That’s the kind of number that changes how you allocate usage across your fleet.

Finally, the full cost of ownership in one place.

2. Tax alerts from DVLA

Your cars don’t forget their tax renewal dates. Neither should you.

MotorLedger now pulls live tax status directly from DVLA. Every vehicle you add shows one of three states at a glance:

• Taxed — with the expiry date
• SORN — statutory off-road notification, excluded from alerts
• Untaxed — red alert, immediate attention

Smart Reminders now include road tax alongside MOT, service, and insurance. Amber warnings land 60 days out. Red alerts the moment anything goes overdue — well ahead of DVLA’s own three-week reminder letter. For a collection of ten or twenty vehicles, this is the difference between proactive management and last-minute panic.

SORN vehicles are automatically excluded from tax alerts. No noise, no false positives.

3. Twelve fields from seven characters

Enter a UK registration. MotorLedger now auto-populates twelve data fields directly from DVLA:

1. Make
2. Model
3. Year and month of first registration
4. Colour
5. Engine capacity (cc)
6. CO₂ emissions (g/km)
7. Euro emissions standard
8. Fuel type
9. Tax status
10. Tax renewal date
11. MOT status and expiry
12. Date your V5C logbook was last issued

Seven characters typed. Twelve fields populated. Zero spreadsheet work.

Every one of these fields feeds downstream features. The emissions data contextualises your running costs. The tax status drives Smart Reminders. The V5C issue date becomes part of your provenance paper trail. The first-registration month determines whether your car is MOT-exempt under the 3-year rule.

What DVLA knows, MotorLedger shows.

4. MOT exemptions, handled automatically

UK law has two MOT exemptions that most vehicle trackers get wrong.

New cars — exempt until their third birthday. A brand-new Porsche 911 doesn’t need an MOT until three years after first registration. MotorLedger now shows “First MOT due June 2027” with the exact date, calculated from the DVLA first-registration data.

Historic vehicles — exempt indefinitely once they’re over 40 years old (unless substantially changed, e.g. engine swaps or chassis replacements). A 1983 Ferrari or a 1978 Jaguar no longer triggers false MOT reminders. MotorLedger flags them as “Exempt (historic)” and stops nagging for an MOT the law doesn’t require.

We know when your MOT is exempt. And when it’s not.

This alone is worth the upgrade if you own a classic. Constant false reminders for an MOT you don’t need is a small friction that compounds across a collection.

5. V5C provenance tracking

Every DVLA lookup now captures the date your V5C logbook was last issued.

The V5C issue date is a strong proxy for recent ownership changes — every time the logbook is reissued (new owner, address change, modification), DVLA stamps the date. For a collector car, this becomes part of the paper trail that matters at sale time.

MotorLedger surfaces the V5C issue date automatically on the Summary tab. It’s ready to include in your Vehicle History Pack when you go to sell. One more data point for your vehicle’s provenance, pulled automatically, with zero extra work.

What this all adds up to

Five updates. All of them expand what MotorLedger captures from a single DVLA lookup, or help you use that data more effectively. None of them require more typing — in fact, the direction is the opposite. We keep finding ways to get more value from the seven characters you’ve already entered.

The Running Costs tab is the headline feature. Tax alerts are the one that will save you from an awkward moment with the DVLA. MOT exemption handling is the one classic collectors have been asking for.

Ready to try it? The free tier includes every new feature for your first vehicle. No credit card, no time limit.

Start tracking your collection →