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ars
Something the article sort of implies but in an unclear way - do vehicles sold in other countries still get assigned a VIN?
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mrheosuper
There is AI smell in this article. I think it's "The system's elegant constraints" part, way too similar to AI's writing.
netsharc
It's also wrong/limited to US-manufactured cars. The 2nd and 3rd letter outside of the North America doesn't follow the convention of country, and manufacturer.

For example Alfa Romeo has Z, followed by AR; Fiat has ZFA. German-made BMWs (as opposed to US-made ones) have WB...

throwaway202508
This article isn't even correct. 5YJ3 is the code for model 3. Not F.

  Position 4 (3) - Vehicle Line:

  1 = Model S
  3 = Model Y
  7 = Model X
  F = Model 3
None of these are correct. S = Model S X = Model X 3 = Model 3 Y = Model Y
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1a527dd5
I happen to work in this world, and it is much much worse than this.

CAP codes are white space sensitive, they often have leading whitespaces. So you need to store " PINGPONG", but if you store "PINGPONG" then you are going to be a in world of hurt.

Then each manufacturer has their own code (e.g BMW has IVS, Stellantis has titre and so on).

Then there are mapping files between CAP and manufacturer specific code.

Then manufacturers often need to quickly react to new models being available so you get things like overrides, which is literally a string replace "OO" with "XX" and that makes it into a "electric diesel".

Then along side CAP codes, you other industry codes (e.g. Glasses, HPI).

And they _ALL_ need to interact with each other.

It sounds like a fun problem to solve, it isn't. You basically become a glorified data mangler.

throw0101d
It would be nice if a similar global system/format existed for bicycles to better help deal with tracking theft.