General Car Categories and Organization

[phlyler]

For this site to be useful, there needs to be a way to look at cars of a particular engine and trim, since these data affect fuel economy.

These data are very poor right now on Fuelly. For instance, for an acura integra, there are 4 submodels:

GS (2)
GS-R (3)
LS (4)
Other (284)

However, all the cars are in the other category, which is useless. 'Other' shouldn't be an option.

Continuing with the acura integra, the engine category as the following options:

1.6L GAS L4 1590cc (1)
1.7L GAS L4 1678cc (1)
1.8L GAS L4 1797cc (3)
1.8L GAS L4 1834cc (1)
GAS (2)
GAS L4 (275)

The problems here are that 'GAS' and 'GAS L4' shouldn't be options. Furthermore, the distinction that matters with the integra is whether it has VTEC (Honda's variable valve timing) and this isn't listed next to the displacement. For other types of cars, 'turbo' needs to be listed next to the displacement.

My conclusion is that after you scrape these data from the net, you really need someone who knows cars to go through it by hand. There are just too many non-standard ways in which cars are named, marketed, and categorized. I could probably do it in a month, so I don't think the undertaking isn't worth your time.