· Automotive Data Group · Company · 2 min read
Why every number we publish carries its source
An editorial policy, stated once so we can be held to it.
This is a short post setting out how we handle figures, so that clients and readers can hold us to it.
Every number we publish carries its source and its method. Where it came from, what it covers, what period, and what it excludes. If a figure appears in one of our posts without that, it is an error and we would like to hear about it.
We distinguish confirmed from inferred. In enrichment work this is a field-level marker: a specification we read from a source and a specification we derived from a pattern are not the same thing, and collapsing them is how people end up buying a car that does not exist. In published analysis it is a sentence saying which is which.
We do not publish figures we cannot substantiate on request. This includes figures about ourselves. If we state a volume, a duration or a coverage claim on this site, we can show you the basis for it.
We correct in place, visibly. A corrected post keeps its URL, gains a dated note describing what changed, and does not quietly become a different article.
We say when we do not know. Considerable parts of this trade are genuinely opaque — informal transit, undeclared reconditioning, cash markets that leave no statistical trace. Where a question cannot be answered from available evidence, the honest answer is that it cannot, and we would rather give that answer than a confident guess.
None of this is remarkable. It is ordinary practice in any field where being wrong has consequences. It is worth stating explicitly here because it is not, at present, ordinary practice in this one.