@pipeworx/ca-dmv

California DMV data: registered vehicles and EV adoption by ZIP code, all 187 field offices with the services each performs, the official forms catalog, insurer NAIC codes, and licensed-driver counts by county. Keyless.

Why this is one state per pack

Part of the dmv category — one pack per state motor-vehicle agency. The states do not share a grain: California publishes a ZIP × make × model-year × fuel snapshot, New York a record-level file, Washington monthly transaction counts, Maryland county-months, Pennsylvania county-quarters. A single cross-state tool meant a schema where most arguments were ignored for most states and a "total" that was never comparable, so each agency gets its own tools with its own real arguments. For every DMV tool in one connection, use /mcp?vertical=dmv.

Related MCP server: @pipeworx/us-dmv

Tools

Auth

None. Every endpoint is public California state infrastructure. The CKAN-backed tools accept an optional CKAN API key, which the public datasets do not require.

Gotchas worth knowing

Live-verified behaviours, not guesses:

• Snapshots are one CKAN resource per year, 2019–2026, and the rows carry the prior December 31 as their as-of date — the "2026" file describes the fleet on 2025-12-31.

• Grouping by ZIP surfaces a literal OOS bucket — out-of-state registrants, ~638k vehicles — which outranks every real ZIP. Ignore it when ranking ZIPs; the tool flags it in note.

• OTHER/UNK is a real make value that absorbs small-count suppression and can outrank genuine makes in a by-make ranking.

• total_vehicles appears only when it is honest. Grouping by fuel returns every category, so its sum is the true fleet total; any other grouping can be cut off by limit, and those responses carry sum_of_returned_rows plus truncated instead.

• Fuel labels are specific strings (Battery Electric, Plug-in Hybrid, Hybrid Gasoline, Diesel and Diesel Hybrid, Hydrogen Fuel Cell). Plain words like "electric", "phev" or "hydrogen" are mapped for you.

• Form search uses the DMV site's own relevance ranking, so a broad phrase like "title transfer" can put a vessel-title form above the vehicle one.

• California publishes no wait-time feed. Only North Carolina (nc-dmv) and Oregon (or-dmv) do; ca_dmv_offices returns posted hours instead.

• Lien lookup and appointment booking are unavailable: the lien endpoint requires a reCAPTCHA token and appointments run on a session-based kiosk system.

Data sources

• Vehicle Fuel Type Count by Zip Code — data.ca.gov CKAN, datastore_search_sql

• Driver Licenses Outstanding by County — data.ca.gov CKAN

• Field office directory — dmv.ca.gov WP REST, hours and per-office service tags

• Forms catalog — dmv.ca.gov WP REST

• Insurance carrier NAIC lookup — https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wp-json/dmv/v1/naic-lookup?s=<name>

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ca-dmv": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/ca-dmv/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway for access to all 1392+ data sources:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about California DMV data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• All tools and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT