PHP - Do I Put This In The Controller Or View?

Hi 

I will try and explain this as best I can, as I am not sure if the "include" is causing the problem.

What I am trying to achieve is count the total number of vehicles in the "vehicles" db table and pass it to views (I have recently moved over to MVC so still learning so please be kind and keep it simple for me please)

I have a folder in views called "vehicletracker" , within this folder I have 2 files "index.php" and "widget.php".........The "widget.php" file  is an "include" within "index php".

The problem I am having is passing data from the controller to the view, I keep getting an "Undefined index: total" error and wonder if someone can help and show me where I am going wrong.

This is my Model

 <?php

 class Widget {
    private $db;
    
    public function __construct(){
      $this->db = new Database;
    }
      
      public function countVehicles(){
      $this->db->query("SELECT * FROM vehicles");
      return $this->db->rowCount();
    }  
      
      
  }

This is my controller

<?php
  class Widgets extends Controller{
    public function __construct(){
     $this->widgetModel = $this->model('Widget');
        
    
   public function widget (){
       $data['total'] = $this->widgetModel->countVehicles();
       $this->view('vehicletracker/widget', $data);
   }
        
        
}

And my view

<h2 class="text-white"><?php echo $data['total']; ?></h2>

Thanks in advance for any help you can give

I'm using this struture to run my application, everything works fine, but i don't like how the controllers are called. If i load the model in construct it will work great again, but i think that is unnecessary.

You can see two pieces of code about controller "Post.php", the last one, works great.

If i try this: (Posts.php)

    namespace app\controllers;
    
    use app\libraries\Controller;
    use app\models\User;
    
    class Posts extends Controller {    
        public function index():void {
            //Get posts
            $user = new User();
            $posts = $user->posts();
            $data = [
                'posts' => $posts
            ];
    
            $this->view('posts/index', $data);
        }
    }

I will get an error: 

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'app\models\User' not found in C:\xampp\htdocs\shake\app\controllers\Posts.php

Structu

    - app
        - libraries
            - Core.php
            - Controller.lphp
        - bootstrap.php
    - public
        - index.php
    - vendor
    composer.json

bootstrap.php

//include all files from libraries
require_once __DIR__ . "/../vendor/autoload.php";

index.php

use app\libraries\Core;
require_once '../app/bootstrap.php';

//Init Core Library
$init = new Core();

core.php

    public function __construct(){
        $url = $this->getUrl();
    
        //Look in controllers for first value
        if(file_exists(dirname(__FILE__, 2) . '/controllers/' . ucwords($url[0]) . '.php')){
            //if exists, set as controller
            $this->currentController = ucwords($url[0]);
            //Unset 0 index
            unset($url[0]);
        }
    
        //Require the controller
        require_once dirname(__FILE__, 2) . '/controllers/' . $this->currentController . '.php';
    
        //instantiate controller class
        $class = 'app\\controllers\\' . $this->currentController;
        $this->currentController = new $class;
    
        //check for second part of url
        if(isset($url[1])){
            //Check to see if method exists in controller
            if(method_exists($this->currentController, $url[1])){
                $this->currentMethod = $url[1];
                //Unset 1 index
                unset($url[1]);
            }
        }
        
        //Get params
        $this->params = $url ? array_values($url) : [];
    
        //Call a callback with array of params
        call_user_func_array([$this->currentController, $this->currentMethod], $this->params);
        }

Posts.php

    class Posts extends Controller {
        public function __construct() {
            $this->userModel = $this->model('User');
            $this->postModel = $this->model('Post');
        }
        
        public function index():void {
            //Get posts
            $posts = $this->userModel->posts();
            $data = [
                'posts' => $posts
            ];
    
            $this->view('posts/index', $data);
        }
    }

Controller.php

abstract class Controller {
    /**
     * Load model
     * @param $model
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function model($model) {
        //Require model file
        require_once '../app/models/' . $model . ".php";
        
        //instantiate model
        $class = 'app\models\\' . $model;
        return new $class();
    }