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FAQ & notes

Why does this cost money?

The price reflect my efforts researching automobile industry since 2003, compiling quality databases and keeping them up-to-date, plus offering daily customer support.

Databases are targeting commercial use, each year few hundreds companies, programmers and web developers, paying BIG $$ to ensure getting a complete vehicle database, frequently updated and with accurate technical specs, several customers offered me $1000+ to make a customized vehicle list. Hope you can do the same.

Stay away from websites offering databases for FREE download, they are most likely stolen and posted online by other people than original author, or made by careless students who needed only a bunch of data for their studies, such databases does not cover all cars, have many errors, are outdated, no support or updates are provided. Using databases downloaded freely may destroy your company reputation.

Prices too high! Can you offer a discount for non-commercial use?

I cannot verify if you make profit or not. If you need database for personal use, data analysis, machine learning, academic, etc, you are welcome to purchase at same price like commercial entities. If you cannot afford my prices, we cannot make a deal. Sorry!

Full databases prices are NOT negotiable. Do not say that you are a poor student from India or Africa, you lost job, your mom died yesterday, and need full data for $10 (example of SCAM attempt mentioning death of his mother). I have a constant flow of European and American companies paying me hundreds $, I do not care about getting $10 from an Indian student (no racism intended but over 50% of Indian customers attempted to negotiate price, compared with <10% from other countries).

Discounts are ONLY if you buy partial data. I offer big databases in multiple packages, such as “new cars only” or “naming only” for people who do not need old cars and full specifications. Additionally I can offer partial databases with specific makes or car types, for example if you want to buy an used SUV and think that my database can help you making a decision, I can sell you a partial database with only SUVs produced last 5-10 years, price will be 2x my regular price per row of data.

Students who need 200 rows, 1000 rows, etc, but not full database: if the free samples with 1 make are not sufficient, I can sell you a partial database for example with 5 selected makes, 2 selected models per make, and all variants of these models, NO updates, for a discounted price. If you want for free, use sample files posted on website, DO NOT waste my time selecting models if you cannot pay even a discounted price!

How to get full database?

First, download the free SAMPLES (they usually include 1 make with all models or 3 models from 3 makes with their all variants) and test database in your application. Then click green button “buy and download”, pay with PayPal or Credit Card (via 2Checkout) and download link for the FULL database is emailed automatically to you (example email).

Contact me for other payment methods (Skrill, Western Union, Bank Transfer, Bitcoin and other crypto, etc).

Can I buy a small database then upgrade to a bigger database by paying difference?

YES in case of databases with same table structure. For example if you bought Car Models & Engines 1990s-present then you want Car Models & Engines & Dimensions 1970s-present, you can contact me and I will lower a price to pay difference.

NO upgrade from Car Models Database to Car Models & Engines Database because their table structure is very different and are aimed to different business fields.

Do you provide updates and how often?

Update frequency depends by how many people buy each database and how much effort takes each update. Download links are set to expire in 1 year, you can click the link again anytime you want to download latest updates. Moreover each time I update a database I re-send the email with download link to all customers to notify you to re-download database.

Do you provide API to avoid needing to re-download file after each update?

I do not have sufficient experience to create API myself. If you are an experienced developer with interest for cars, join to help me and other customers by creating an API (API should be hosted on my server and managed by me). I reward you with free access to data. Read more.

Possible NEW Car Engines List

Since 2003 I have made Car Models & Engines Database for my personal use so it was made “as I wanted“… since I launched it for sale in 2012, some customers refuse to purchase it because it is not made “as they wants“, is too complex, containing too much data, etc. I see the necessity of a simpler car list with just engine list and no additional specifications!

SAMPLE of 2 possible formats: https://www.teoalida.com/cardatabase/samples/Car-Engines-Database-SAMPLE.xls.

YOU have the chance to decide how to develop a new, simpler Car Engine List! VOTE in below poll and leave comments!

As June 2014, I discussed with a customer and he choose Proposal 2, with separate rows for each body style, FWD/AWD, but also suggested to add Fuel Type column. I will rebuild this database in November 2014 after next main yearly update (or earlier if I get votes and feedback from at least 5 people).

Final SAMPLE: Car Engines Database without performance data.xls (renamed to https://www.teoalida.com/cardatabase/car-models-engines/ in 2015).
Due to high interest from people, in August 2014 I decided to sell a version of existing Engine Database with performance data removed. Removing columns created duplicate rows, some marked and deleted, there are still few hundred duplicate rows, extensive check-through is to be done next months to mark all duplicates and I will launch final version in November. You have 2-3 months left to propose changes!

[simpleecommcart_add_to_cart id=”11″ ]

New proposal: Engine list in 4 columns, changed in December 2014 according suggestion of an auto parts website looking for engine list in 3-4 columns to make a drop-down list, instead of table form with large number of columns. Hierarchy changed, per body style instead of per model platform.
I showed it to 3 previous customers asking if they agree to change entire database to this format… NO ONE liked the new format. If you like this format, or propose a different format, please leave a comment at bottom of page… or contact me in other ways.

[polldaddy poll=7921595]

Databases confusing?

The names (list, timeline, database, etc) are confusing?
I agree… but I lack imagination for a better naming system.
Feel free to view samples and propose better product names!

Note that until late 2012, I though that DATAbase = technical data, I did not knew that DATABASE means any XLS / SQL table regardless if is a simple make/model list. Correct naming for technical data’s database is the SPECS.

However I keep using the naming Car Models List = NO SPECS, Car Models Database = SPECS. Except for Car Models Encyclopedia which isn’t a XLS.

DELETED 1010tires

In September 2017 another customer suggested scraping from 1010tires.com. This website is updated more often than above two. The job took 30 hours with my partner’s standard scraper.

Due to low sales volume I will NOT update this database anymore.

Download SAMPLE (1 make):
1010tires-SAMPLE.xlsx

Buy full database (all makes):

Coverage: 1990-present.

DELETED SimpleTire

If you want a car tire database updated more often I can do web scraping from SimpleTire.com, I done scraping of tires by brand, creating another Tire Database for another customer who turned to be an idiot, who asked me to scrap tires by vehicle too. But in case of tires by vehicle, the website is very complex to scrap because data is in JSON format rather than HTML, so I need to pay $250 to my programmer partner to make a custom scraping application. The idiot did not paid for first project so could not do the second project. If anyone is interested to pay $250 for SimpleTire, contact me and we arrange a deal.

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How was made & quality notes

While the European car database is made via manual data entry (thus adding new data constantly), and American car database is a mix between manual work and automatic web scraping, the Indian car database is just a web scraping job.

Good news: easy to update. Bad news: I sell “as it is” without corrections or filling missing data. A customer asked me if I can add body type column (hatchback, sedan, convertible, etc). I can add for a fee, but at each update any additional data will be lost, so I would need to charge the adding fee again = not cost-effective.

Typical programmers charge $300-500 to build a web scraper (example), plus $50-100 for each update. You can buy ready data from me for $30-120 with free monthly updates for one year.

Other databases

CarWale On-Road Prices.csv – A very difficult job which involved about 20 hours of coding in Visual Basic to make an application sending javascript requests to CarWale website to get price of each car in each city, application works at a rate of 2 requests per second, so 3100 cars × 510 cities = 1632000 seconds = 226 hours needed to get all on-road prices, RTO tax and insurance. The empty cells is because certain cars are available only in selected cities (Aston Martin only in Mumbai, Maruti is available in 500+ cities).

Due to time required to scrap all cities, I done future updates MONTHLY for a shortened list of 47 cities that takes about 22 hours and asked customer to pay for each update.

Goods and Services Tax was implemented on 1 July 2017 and harmonized car prices across India, the customer told me that updates are no longer required.

Used cars – Scraping used cars websites is a big stupidity in my opinion, since they are never complete, cars are removed from site once their owners found a buyer, you are not getting any usable data, but someone told me specifically to scrap an indian used cars website. CarDekho was the easiest to scrap, and have 45000+ cars.

Buy FULL database

DO NOT ask me abou

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Do you provide invoices?

PayPal provide receipt for purchase and you can use it if needed. In 2014 and 2015 I also provided a DOC invoice if I was asked. But in 2015 someone told me that I cannot legally issue invoices if I am not a registered company. I am 1-person business with no employees so there is no reason to register a company. The CEO of one company got idea to pay from his personal account rather than company account, to avoid needing invoice to explain his purchase. You can do the same, tell to your boss to pay from personal account.

What does mean 1995-present? Does it exclude first 2 years of Mercedes C-Class?

For people who do not want to pay full price for the full 1945-present, I offer 1995-present and 2005-present filtered data.

1995-present package include models that have the middle between production start and end year in 1995 or newer. I decide which model to include or exclude depending by major changes in manufacturer range. Renault Clio 1 (1991-1998) is included but all numerical Renaults up to 19 (1988-1996) are excluded. Mercedes is included after 1993 , Audi after 1994, etc. Volkswagen starts from 1994 Polo, 1991 Golf, 1992 Vento, 1993 Passat, exclude Corrado (1988-1995).

Usually there are NO partially included models, unless they have very long production (example Fiat Panda 1980-2003 which the package include versions after 1995 facelift), or Mercedes W124 (1985-1997) which is included the 1993-1997 versions sold under E-Class name.

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Examples of things that I cannot do
Someone was looking for VIN database (Vehicle identification number), I answered that if he have the VIN data can give me and I will see if I can add it in my table, but he did not had (February 2013). A second customer asked me for VIN database, but our chat gone wrong. He told me that VINs are unique per each car and NOT per model/trim… so in this case how a VIN database should look like????
If do you want a VIN database, please provide me a feasible format, otherwise I consider it an impossible project.
During 2013 3 people asked me if I can compile a motorcycle database too. I have over 10 years experience in cars, while the experience in motorcycles is ZERO because I was never interested in them.  I CAN start it by compiling a list of models with production years using Wikipedia, but without experience I may be not able to spot and fix errors to produce a quality database. Sorry, I will say NO, let’s stick on CARS only. Update: after learning web scraping I was able to quickly create a motorcycle database in 2016.
Someone asked if I can add oil viscosity in my database. He said that this info is available in car service manuals. OK, but does have time to look on Google, and read every car manual to copy this info in Excel? Sorry, NO for such high-effort jobs!
One of the weirdest requests was from a manufacturer of mosquito nets for 4-door cars, requesting a database with rear door window dimensions. No car manufacturer provide such info that is not on general interest… it needs to be measured manually on cars of his own customers.

Vehicle database for other markets than Europe and United States

During 2014, 2 customers from Australia asked if I can make a database for their market. Australia population of 22 million people send me 1% of total website traffic and will make my job unprofitable. Sorry, I am NOT interested to build an Australian Car Database that will have estimated 5 sales per year.

Special mention for India, with 1+ billion population and booming car industry, it sent me about 8% of website traffic … after I serve every possible customer in Europe and America, next market to go will be India.

But making an Indian database pose 3 problems:

• Lack of reliable data source comparable with AutoKatalog magazine (Europe) and Edmunds.com website (America).
• The poverty of a third-world country (some customers offered me sums of money that makes me crying).
• The bad experience with some indians, their rude attitude and attempts to get work done for free and pay after that, made me undecided if I should serve them with an Indian Car Database.

Because daily traffic on Car Database sub-website was rising, and because I learned web scraping, I almost quit my other job (AutoCAD & architecture design) to focus my life on databases, created a car database for India in August 2015, followed by Middle East in 2016, both of these selling so poorly so did not created databases for more continents, until Australia in 2017, which surprisingly sold to 5 people in first month, higher sale volume that India and Middle East together despite of smaller population.

Can you make a database for our exclusive use, and not sell to anyone else?

In 3 years, 2 people asked me to make a database of buildings in Singapore for their exclusive use.

One of reasons for which I LIKE this job, is that once I complete a database required by a customer, I can publish it on website and other people will purchase it too, generating a lifetime income with a small amount of time needed for regular updates.

BUT if you want to be exclusive user of a database, I will no longer like this job. You need to pay a price equivalent with the estimated sales for one year.

However there is a BIG problem: what I should do if someone else ask me to compile similar database? Would be NOT NICE to say NO to the second customer and not compile the data requested (how I can “compile” again? I just need to sell the database compiled for you), even if I say NO, he will pay someone else to compile data, as long the data is about cars, buildings, and other real life objects, he is likely to get anyway from someone else a database similar with the one sold exclusively to you. So…? Exclusive use is probably impossible. If you want I can avoid publishing your database on website, but I reserve right to sell to other people if they ask for same kind of database.

Is possible instead, to offer small customization to existing database to make it slightly unique for each customer.

Deleted from Car Prices

Original writing from 2013: Car prices vary from country to country… some time ago a customer gave me a link to a PDF showing prices of selected cars across EU countries and I noticed variations of about 10-20% even between neighbor countries using same EURO currency (probably on Eurostats but I cannot remember or find anymore that PDF, do you?).
In Uinted States, prices vary from state to state too, possible even within same state!
I could have included the car prices in Germany market, as provided by AutoKatalog, but the website gets just 2% traffic from Germany thus I risk to have 98% of customers blaming me for providing wrong prices! Do you have any proposal?

Update: in 2015 I learned web scraping, allowing me to quickly create new databases by copying data from various websites. The new databases for India, Middle East and Australia, made via scraping, do contain prices, sourced from their websites. The original European database, after AutoKatalog ended publication in 2014. I am currently updating sourcing data from ADAC website which allow me to include base price in Germany for cars produced after 2013.

/cardatabase/car-prices/

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The list does also include a short description (company history) for some brands, as suggested by a customer in 2013, however the next customers did not liked the idea so I did not added description for remaining brands. Should I continue writing descriptions?

History

Original Car Models List was compiled in Word, it was not market specific, but instead showing the domestic market of every manufacturer (except Japan), for European manufacturers it showed models sold in Europe, for American manufacturers it showed models sold in America (years column displayed Model Years instead of production years), for Asian manufacturers it showed models sold in Europe plus few local models.

Since December 2012 offer the list of car models also in Excel format (4 columns) after I met a web developer looking for a Make / Model database in Excel format for quick import in MySQL database.

During 2013 I expanded the car make and model list to 8 columns, added “Sold in EU / US” and put Model Years for North American market on separate column from Production years, and made it complete also for American market, by adding Japanese and Korean models produced exclusively for America.

Due to the inevitable inaccuracy that you should expect in any WORLDWIDE global database, caused primarily by cars sold under multiple names in different markets or same name used in different markets for multiple unrelated cars, since May 2013 I provide also an accurate Europe-only version in same format, every few months, extracted from Worldwide database which I update constantly (every month).

In 2016 I finalized Japanese Domestic Market at the level of completion of Wikipedia. However we cannot know how complete is Wikipedia.

Big dilemmas! You can decide how I will improve the list of car models in the future

– Should include Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, etc, divisions of European manufacturers? They produce mostly SAME models but in DIFFERENT production years, currently European-designed models produced also in Latin America are not added (due to  risk of being considered duplicate entries), but models designed and produced ONLY in Latin America were added in June 2013 edition.

– What is best thing to do when a vehicle is sold with multiple names in different countries? Currently the Excel table contains names used in European, American markets plus the country of origin (European name is shown the first). Example: Kia Magentis (Europe) = Kia Opirus (America) = Kia K5 (Korea), possible additional names from the rest of world are not included. This is getting a SERIOUS ISSUE since I am expanding the Car Models List beyond European and American markets. Would be good idea an additional column “Alternate names” while the main column to display ONLY the name from the country of origin?

One customer complained that is incomplete in the sense that I displayed Renault Clio III as 2005-2012, he claimed that was original model 2005-2008 and facelifted model 2008-2012. Car Models List excel database include only all-new models, NOT mid-life facelifts because of impossibility to identify all minor modifications of a car model. If you want breakdown by every minor change in body design, you can buy Car Models Database.

Deleted from Non-European markets

For accuracy reasons, any car database should be continent / market-specific.
If you ever see a website selling a “Worldwide vehicle database” including car specs, DO NOT TRUST IT!
Car specs vary from country to country, especially between European and American markets there is very little similarity, even if cars wear same name. Toyota Corolla sold in Europe is NOT the same with Toyota Corolla sold in North America.

Teoalida’s Car Database developed since 2003 is primarily based on German car magazines, although I live in Romania. It also include the cars sold only in United Kingdom as well as cars produced in former communist countries and never exported to the West, making it a complete database for whole Europe (unlike other databases that have only cars sold in United Kingdom, missing many cars sold in continental Europe).

Starting from 2013 I also provide dedicated database for North American market. Between 2013 and 2015 I also provided add-ons for European database with cars produced in India and Latin America, but abandoned it because these markets are so different than Europe so European database + add-on was useless.

Since 2015 I provided dedicated database for India, Middle East and Australia, made via web scraping from accurate local websites.

DELETED from How do I receive updates

When you purchase, you get a receipt email containing an unique download link valid for 1 year and you can click it any times you want to re-download latest version of database. Moreover, each time I update each database, I click “resend receipt” in WordPress dashboard to each customer, to notify you to download again (starting from November 2015).

People who purchased prior to November 2015 are still eligible for free updates for 1 year, but they need to ask me to send the latest version of database as email attachment.

Old way 2012-2015

Between 2013 and 2015 I was using Simple eCommerce plugin which allowed unlimited downloads of the file as it was at the day of purchase, no updates, and was quite bugged. You had to contact me when do you need updates, and I will email you a new version, or inform in advance how often to send.

I was emailing manually updates. Number of customers was rising and in March-April 2013 I sent emails to 10 people and only 1 replied back so I decided to stop sending emails to avoid people reporting me as spammer or triggering myself the anti-spam due to too many emails sent and probably people were not receiving updates.

In 2015 I found getnotify.com that shows if emails have been opened, I sent 20 emails over few days and only 3 of them were opened. Proving that this way of sending updates is NOT efficient.

Even more complicated, sometimes the buyer is not from the actual business who use the automobile database, but a webdesigner making a website for that business. Sending updates to buyer (webdesigner) is useless, once the website is complete he no longer have contract or access to it.

Certain customers do not use the database as provided (as stand-alone product) but compile my data with their own data, this leads to time wasted every time I update the database. They asked me if I can send only the updates and not entire database. This is NOT possible because of constant updating and because the updates involve changes or adding more data for existing cars too, not just adding new cars. Instead, is possible to send you all cars launched in current year regardless you got them before, and you are advised to recompile the entire database once per year, after November.

New way 2015

In March 2015 I moved from shared hosting with cPanel and Apache to a VPS with Webuzo and Nginx. Simple eCommerce plugin was not working properly, clicking links was leading to Receipt page rather than downloading product, so in May 2015 I installed other plugin: Easy Digital Downloads, which have a lot of functions that for long time I was not aware how to use them.

In November 2015 I got idea to set the download link to expire in 8760 hours = 1 year. You are advised to keep the purchase email and click the download link again as often you need updates. You can monitor List of updates page. Moreover Easy Digital Downloads allow me to quickly re-send download links to everyone who purchase certain product, which I do every time I launch a new version.

DELETED PAGE Why this Car Database is better than others?

Complete coverage
Some concurrent websites claims to offer 1940-2013 models, but actually it is the range from the oldest car to newest car included, and if you look 10 years ago in history, you may see missing cars.
The fact that I have included in Car Engine Specs Database all historical Porsche models up to 1950 is a BONUS, I do not claim the database 1950-2013.

99% data completion
Some concurrent databases have more data fields, but you may be frustrated when you notice that over 20% of cars have these fields empty.
To avoid making the Excel table looking ugly with many empty data cells, personally I have decided to include fewer data which is available for all cars.
We all know, it’s very hard to find detailed specs about old cars… but at least my database (technical data) for European market guarantee 99% data completion since 1990 (more than 20 years of complete coverage = which means over 90% of the stock of used cars existing on roads), while the list of models (no technical data) is complete since 1945 for all manufacturers that were alive in 1990s. See the SAMPLE files to confirm!
I constantly increase coverage by adding minor manufacturers, plus manufacturers that died before 1990.

I source the data from AutoKatalog, one of the most reputable car magazines in the world. I have all AutoKatalog since 1991. I plan for 2013 to buy older AutoKatalogs to expand database into 1980s. However I have noticed that most companies who are contacting me for questions before making the deal, are not interested in cars older than 20 years, so the history expansion will be done in spare time.

DELETED PAGE list of manufacturers

Due to increased number of databases for other continents than Europe, I deleted list of manufacturers in European database that WAS written on this page, instead added list of manufacturers in each individual database page.

To sell an automobile database, an ONE-make sample needs to be offered as FREE SAMPLE. Some people (example) have trouble understanding this… contacting me asking if I have / how they can get the rest of makes, while other people may have quit website. People believe that the SAMPLE is all what I have, quit website instead of buying the FULL database! Any suggestion how I can avoid losing such customers?

Each SAMPLE Excel file contains a “Statistics” sheet showing list of auto makes and number of models included per each make, for the FULL database.

If you saw somewhere a list with 1000 manufacturers, this does not mean that my Worldwide Model List with 103 brands and European Database with 78 brands (as January 2013) is severely incomplete.

Yes, the world HAD 1000+ vehicle manufacturers before World War II. Today there are less than 100 major brands (producing at least several hundred vehicles per year and having established dealers network, including Bentley, Lamborghini, Maserati, etc), excluding chinese cars (insufficient data available for China vehicles)…
Of them:
57 makes were sold in Western Europe during 1990, 53 during 2000, only 47 as 2013.
48 makes were sold in North America during 1990, 46 during 2000, only 41 as 2013.

The database was already complete for Western European market since April 2012 edition having 65 brands in Car Models List and 57 brands in Car Models and Car Models & Engines Database. It grew to 100+ brands in Car Models List (Worldwide) and 78 brands in Car Models Database (Europe) as January 2013, because I also added communist brands as well as minor and dead brands (examples: Bristol, Koenigsegg, ISO Rivolta, McLaren, Morgan, Venturi – most people never heard of these names).

I constantly add exotic car makes with hard-to-find data, plus less-known makes that survived the war but died in 1950s-1980s, as well as expanding database to cover more markets than Europe.
Feel free to suggest new brands to be added!