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SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Though U.S. Census Bureau data indicates women make up a slight majority of the country's population, a recent TrueCar.com study found females do not represent the preponderance of registered vehicle owners.

In fact, while looking over 13 million actual vehicle registrations covering the last two years, site analysts determined men primarily are the name listed as owner by a significant margin. The rate difference was 64 percent for men compared to 36 percent for women.

Meanwhile, Census Bureau findings reveal women constitute 51 percent of the general population.

TrueCar.com reiterated that it reviewed only the gender of the name on the registration, not the driver or decision maker.

"We were surprised to see that there is still a sizable gender gap when it comes to vehicle registrations," conceded Jesse Toprak, TrueCar.com's vice president of industry trends and insights.

"Of the more than 200 models we examined, only nine were registered by more women than men and none of the brands had a registration rate that was higher for women."

Delving deeper into the study findings, Kia was the brand with the highest percentage of female registrations at 45.8 percent. Site editors determined many of the other nameplates that apparently struck a cord with women and had a penetration of greater than 42 percent are those often known for safety and/or value.

The other brands with that high of a percentage included Suzuki (44.2 percent), Mini (43.9 percent), Subaru (43.2 percent), Nissan (43.1 percent), Hyundai (43.0 percent), Honda (42.8 percent), Volvo (42.4 percent) and Lexus (42.3 percent).

Not surprisingly, the specific models that TrueCar.com determined had a 50 percent female registration rate or higher primarily came from the previously mentioned cluster of brands. The vehicle leading the way was the Volkswagen New Beetle at 56.1 percent.

The rest of the specific units with this high of a percentage included Nissan Rogue (53.5 percent), Hyundai Tucson (53.0 percent), Volkswagen EOS (53.0 percent), Volvo S40 Sedan (51.9 percent), Honda CR-V (51.3 percent), Kia Sportage (50.5 percent), Toyota RAV4 (50.4 percent) and Nissan Sentra (50.1).

Conversely, the study revealed nameplates with the lowest percent of female registrations were ones analysts considered to be exotic or truck-heavy brands. This cluster of eight included Bugatti (zero percent), Ferrari (5.6 percent), Lamborghini (6.5 percent), Dodge (8.8 percent), GMC (9.0 percent), Tesla (9.8 percent), Aston Martin (9.9 percent) and Lotus (10 percent).

"This piece of demographic data is only a small snapshot of the full range of data TrueCar.com will be reporting on in the coming months, with hopes of giving consumers and the manufacturers a better idea of what their purchasing trends look like," site editors explained.