The California car dealer database,sorted by what each store sells
1,686 California dealership rooftops with their OEM franchise mix and live inventory count in front of you before you buy anything. Filter to the brands your product is built for, rank what is left by store size, then unlock the records at 1 credit each.
What is the California car dealer database?
The California car dealer database is a rooftop-level firmographic file for 1,686 California dealerships. Its useful edge in this state is brand: Ford carries more California rooftops than any other franchise, and the franchise column on every record is pipe-delimited, so a store carrying Ford|Lincoln shows both. California is also where a dealership's brand mix changes fastest, and where the compliance and energy vendors selling into the market care about which badge is on the building rather than how many people work inside it. Alongside franchise mix you get live inventory count, founded year and years in business, employee and decision-maker counts, four department phone lines, social profiles, and the website provider, website product and martech signals the store runs. The underlying export rebuilds daily, so the franchise and inventory columns move with the market.
Target by badge, not by guesswork
Ford leads the California franchise mix, and every rooftop lists the full set of brands it carries. Filter to one franchise to reach that brand's California dealer body, or exclude the brands you already sell into so you stop paying for accounts your team has worked.
Store size changes the pitch
Live inventory count is a free column, and inventory, employee-count and years-in-business ranges are all filters. A 700-unit rooftop and a 40-unit rooftop in the same ZIP are different companies with different budgets, and California has both in quantity.
The mix here moves faster than anywhere
CNCDA reports hybrids at a record 22.1% share while ZEV registrations fell 24.8% in the first half of 2026. Franchise mix and inventory counts are rebuilt daily, so a California list you pulled last quarter can be re-pulled and re-scored rather than trusted.
No contract, no seat count
Rooftops unlock at 1 credit each with nothing to sign. Plans start at $99/month and a $0.99 trial covers 20 rooftops, which is usually enough to check the franchise mix in one metro before committing a territory plan to it.
California metros we cover
Compliance & sourcing
California is the one state where B2B contact data clearly sits inside a consumer-privacy statute, because the CCPA's carve-out for business contact information lapsed at the start of 2023. That is a real constraint on a contact list - and it is not what you are buying here. A Dealers record describes a business: no individual is named, no personal identifier appears, and the two headcount fields are integers. The moment you join these rooftops to named people from our Contacts product, the CCPA and CPRA analysis applies to that half of the file, so keep the suppression and deletion handling on the contact side where it belongs. Either way, the data is licensed for your own use and not for resale.
Industry context
Independent research on this segment, from the primary sources. We don't publish these figures — we read them off the publisher's own page, and last checked every one on .
California New Car Dealers Association · Q2 2026, published July 20, 2026
California Auto Outlook
California registered 864,848 new light vehicles in the first half of 2026, down 7.7%, while hybrids hit a record 22.1% share and ZEV registrations fell 24.8%.
Quarterly, built on Experian Automotive registration data.
Read it at California New Car Dealers AssociationUrban Science · Year-end 2025 review
Automotive Franchise Activity Report
The U.S. ended 2025 with 18,398 franchised dealership rooftops, essentially flat against 18,374 a year earlier.
Counts franchised rooftops; NADA's ~16,990 counts reporting franchised dealerships. Different methodologies — not interchangeable.
Read it at Urban Science
Frequently asked questions
How many California dealership rooftops are in the database?
1,686, covering franchised stores and independent lots across the state, from Los Angeles and Orange County through San Diego, the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. Ford carries more of those rooftops than any other franchise. You can filter to a city, a ZIP, a franchise, a website platform or a size range, and the preview shows the exact count before you spend.
Does a California record include EV or emissions data?
No. Hermes Data does not publish ZEV registrations, emissions status or powertrain breakdowns at the rooftop level. What a record gives you is the OEM franchises the store carries and its live inventory count, both rebuilt daily, which is how most buyers approximate a store's electrification exposure. Registration-level market share is published quarterly by the California New Car Dealers Association.
Can I filter California rooftops by OEM franchise?
Yes, and it is the filter most California buyers start with. The franchise column is pipe-delimited, so a store carrying two or three brands is returned for each of them. Combine the franchise filter with an inventory or employee-count range to separate the flagship stores in a brand's California network from its smaller points.
What does the California dealer data cost?
1 credit per rooftop record, out of the same balance that buys contacts and dealer groups. Nothing is charged for filtering or previewing, and a rooftop you already own is skipped rather than billed twice, so re-running a California search after a franchise change only costs credits for the stores that are new to you.
More dealership records
Try Hermes Data for $0.99
Self-serve access to the automotive data your business runs on. The $0.99 trial gives you 20 credits to spend across Contacts, Dealers, and Dealer Groups. Then auto-upgrade to Starter ($99/mo) — or cancel any time.
Contacts, Dealers, and Dealer Groups are all self-serve on one credit wallet — spend your trial credits on any of them. Vehicle Listings is live too, on its own API subscription (separate from the credit wallet). Explore Listings.