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.
Model year (America) vs production year (rest of world)
North American car market is tightly regulated by government, all car models sold here are organized by Model Years. Most important, two successive models DO NOT share same Model Year (with few exceptions). Traditionally car models launched in second half of year are considered Model Year of next year, but legally manufacturers are allowed to launch “2017 Model” starting from 2 January 2016. Every year, they launch the “next year model”, even if the car is unchanged from previous year. New trims also appear in middle of model year.
Europe (and rest of world) do not have officially a car model year system, the year of a particular car is used only informally, and it’s the calendar year. So a car model launched in December 2016 is still a 2016 model. European car websites should show Make – Model – production years (as a range, no individual years).
I have seen some cheap-made websites targeting Europe but using drop-down vehicle list with each year on separate row, but since Europe do not have regulated Model Year, they used each calendar year in which a car has been manufactured. This is WRONG and leads to errors and confusion, in the year of model replacement, their list include both old and new models or just one of them at random.
Check yourself ebay.com/motors and ebay.co.uk/motors, see the difference? This makes combination virtually impossible, unless you adapt American database to European / rest of world format, which is not on the taste of American customers.
Americans doing their business in Europe or worldwide, argued with me saying that my European database is WRONG. Actually it is CORRECT for us. Me too, I considered the american system strange and wrong, until 2013.
More differences between Europe and America markets
Many European and Japanese cars were sold in US with bigger bumpers, getting few extra inches in length.
Cars are sold in US with less engine choices, usually top of range. Example: the 2007-2012 BMW 3-Series E90 have versions 328i, 335i, 335d, M3, while in Europe the versions are 318i, 320i, 325i, 330i, 335i, 316d, 318d, 320d, 325d, 330d, 335d, M3.
Sometimes US engines do not exist in rest of world. Example: VW Golf 6 is sold in US with a 2.5 liters 5 cylinders 170 PS engine which do not exists in Europe where all engines are 4 cylinders, ranging from 1.4 to 2.0 liters turbo, 80 – 200 PS.
US measure horsepower according SAE rules, usually getting slightly higher power than measured in European DIN standard.
US EPA measure fuel efficiency as miles per gallon, Europe measure in liters per 100 km. Conversion is theoretically possible, but due to different system of averaging city/highway and speeds at which mileage is measured, any given car tested in US will eat 10-20% more gas than when tested in Europe, making comparison difficult.
Don’t trust any database claiming to be 100% complete worldwide!
European car market is 99%+ similar within European Union except United Kingdom and Ireland, and 90-95% similar for all 50 European countries. Eastern Europe have few additional cars produced locally, plus Russia gets few additional Asian cars which are not available in Western Europe, all them being included in my European database. United Kingdom car market is different by having less cars available, because not every manufacturer bother to produce cars in right-hand drive, also UK produce few additional cars sold only locally, again included in my European database.
Asia, Africa and Latin America car markets may be 60-80% similar with European market. If you do not have other options and don’t care about accuracy, buy European Database and tell me what other cars are available in your country, eventually delete the excess cars that are not sold in your country.
North American car market is unique. Most vehicles sold in US & Canada are not sold anywhere else. Many vehicles are sold with different specs in Europe and US even if they wear same name.
I offer Car Models List Worldwide including all models sold in Europe and North America and models sold in local market of non EU/US manufacturers, such as Japanese domestic market for Japan manufacturers (after a big effort in 2014). However it will be NEVER complete for all of the 200+ countries in the world, it DO NOT include cars manufactured in a given country and sold somewhere else but not in Europe, USA, neither in their own country’s market.
If do you need a worldwide database more detailed than a simple Make / Model list, things get very… COMPLEX. Car specs vary from one market to another. NOBODY can make a worldwide / global vehicle database for every 200+ countries in the world, at a reasonable accuracy.
The problem is that Japan and South Korea export SAME cars under dozens of different names in various countries. If this was not worse enough, same name is sometimes used in multiple countries for unrelated cars. For example: the Samsung SM3 produced in Korea is also sold in Mexico as Renault Scala and in Russia as Nissan Almera, unrelated with the well-known Japanese Nissan Almera sold all over Europe until 2007. This Russian Almera and its years (and dozens of other similar name changes) are NOT included in Car Models List. Ford do the same, see Ford Escort (Europe) and Ford Escort (North America).
People outside Europe and America are facing trouble finding a database suitable for their country
Some customers are saying “I need a global car database containing European cars (BMW, Skoda, etc) and Japanese cars (Nissan, Toyota, etc), we have all of them in Brazil”. My European database have Japanese models sold in Europe while American database have Japanese models sold in US. Japan manufacturers sell a line of models in Europe, another line of models in North America, another line of models in Latin America, and so on.
Example: Toyota sold the following models in calendar year 2015 / US MY 2016:
In United States: 4Runner, Avalon, Camry, Corolla, Highlander, Land Cruiser, Mirai, Prius, Prius c, Prius v, RAV4, Sequoia, Sienna, Tacoma, Tundra, Yaris.
In Europe: Auris, Avensis, Aygo, GT86, Hilux, iQ, Land Cruiser, Mirai, Prius, Prius+, RAV4, Urban Cruiser, Verso, Verso-S, Yaris.
In India: Corolla, Camry, Etios, Fortuner, Innova, Land Cruiser, Land Cruiser Prado, Prius.
In whatever other country: possible other models.
I got a customer from Arab world saying “I am looking for a car database that contains Nissan Patrol because most database I’ve seen miss it” this happens because most databases available online are for US market and Nissan Patrol is not sold there, my European database does contain Nissan Patrol, but won’t help him either, because Nissan sell in Middle East also Altima which do not exist in European database but exist in American database.
Other customers asked me “if my database contain certain Asian cars that are missing from most car databases” and refused to purchase my European database because they are not containing there as well. Indeed, I do not recommend non-European/American customers to buy from me, but I am curious… what alternatives you can buy?
BEWARE of sites like www.carqueryapi.com which have both US models and non-US models but it is far away from having worldwide coverage. Actually their database is missing models even from American and European markets, and some of my happy customers informed me that bought previously CarQueryAPI and beside missing models, the data is messed up, some models are lowercase, others uppercase, certain values missing for random cars, etc.
Sadly, there are also people coming on my website and chatting with me then buying from CarQueryAPI just because is cheaper or website is simpler… stupid people who take cheap price over quality!