Showroom - New-car research • Hacker News Board

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#41

Post by jedanbik » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

Right now, your website allows me to browse for pictures of new cars in alphabetical order, or search for pictures of new cars. That's it. Why would I bookmark this site? Why would I recommend this site to others? It doesn't yet serve a purpose.

You have data that you can use to boost your site's functionality. If you gave people sliders for base cost, city MPG and highway MPG, your website would be more useful.

People could look for pictures of new cars on google image search. Maybe you want people to look for pictures of new cars on your site by MPG or price. These are things that your website can leverage right now, all by changing the front end.

Until then, your website is a splash page for Edmunds.

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#42

Post by mkessy » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #40

I need something like this, but I don't think this is it. I don't care at all about photos of cars. I would at some point, but I'm not sure when. What I need is: * Each model broken out by every trim (this is 80% of what I need right there) so I don't have to dig through flash-heavy car company websites to figure out what my engine options are * Comparisons across cars/trims on BHP, torque, and displacement, city/hwy…

http://cars.findthebest.com/

This site has a lot more detailed information than a lot of other sites. Not sure if it has everything you mentioned, but I think it would be an adequate starting place.

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#43

Post by sslayer » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #40

I need something like this, but I don't think this is it. I don't care at all about photos of cars. I would at some point, but I'm not sure when. What I need is: * Each model broken out by every trim (this is 80% of what I need right there) so I don't have to dig through flash-heavy car company websites to figure out what my engine options are * Comparisons across cars/trims on BHP, torque, and displacement, city/hwy…

Also Total Cost of Ownership Comparison- factoring in MPG, Lifetime Expectancy, Maintenance and Operating cost as well as Trade In Values at various mileages. I want to buy value, not hype.

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#44

Post by ufmace » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 6:04 PM UTC

The pictures and UI are pretty cool, but right now, there's almost no functionality besides seeing some nice pictures of a particular model that you're interested in.

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#45

Post by declan » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 6:05 PM UTC

I like the idea, but I'd rather have a less glossy and more data-focused approach. How about searching for 0-60 times, limit by 4 seats, limit by price, sort by aggregated reviews, etc.?

I'm pretty familiar with Porsche's lineup (I own one) and the 911 listing is pretty useless (http://showroom.is/porsche/911/). When I click on a 911 Turbo S, I see photos for a Carrera 4 that costs half as much, etc.

A frontend to a MySQL instance where I can fire off queries would be far more useful, frankly. Just remember to sanitize input. :)

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#46

Post by nicksergeant » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 6:06 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #40

I need something like this, but I don't think this is it. I don't care at all about photos of cars. I would at some point, but I'm not sure when. What I need is: * Each model broken out by every trim (this is 80% of what I need right there) so I don't have to dig through flash-heavy car company websites to figure out what my engine options are * Comparisons across cars/trims on BHP, torque, and displacement, city/hwy…

Hey Thomas,

Thanks for the comment. Some great insights here.

Honestly what we have on Showroom right now is not useful. We put this on HN to generate exactly what has happened here: opinionated discussions about what people really want / need from a shopping experience. It's clear (to us) that there can be innovation in this space, and there are a ton of ways to do it.

The thoughts you have are similar to what we've been planning for a while. We want a visual representation of trims for a model - how do they relate to each other, and how do they relate to similar vehicles?

On top of digesting the data that we have (which is a lot), we're going to aggregate stuff from around the web - YouTube reviews, blog post reviews, etc.

Anyways, thanks again for your comment (and not just saying stuff like "this is shit", like other commenters). This is exactly what we posted here for.

Stay tuned :)

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#47

Post by nknighthb » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

jxf wrote: post #7

Right now, one searches for a car type and a car model. But that's not really the way I've searched for my last few cars. Most importantly, I want to be able to: 1. Require a minimum fuel efficiency (e.g. at least 20 mi/gal) 2. Specify a drivetrain (e.g. AWD, FWD, ...) 3. Specify features (e.g. Bluetooth, A/C, ...) 4. Specify a price range (e.g. $20,000 to $45,000)

I want to filter out anything with a fuel tank and sort by range. I know that's only a handful of cars right now, but I'm not gonna be buying anything that runs on minisplosions.

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#48

Post by larrywright » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 3:29 PM UTC

nicksergeant wrote: post #19

larrywright wrote: post #16

I love the idea, but I want it for used cars. I don't by new cars as I think they're a waste of money.

We'll have data for older-model vehicles in the future.

That's great news.

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#49

Post by tedunangst » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 8:59 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #40

I need something like this, but I don't think this is it. I don't care at all about photos of cars. I would at some point, but I'm not sure when. What I need is: * Each model broken out by every trim (this is 80% of what I need right there) so I don't have to dig through flash-heavy car company websites to figure out what my engine options are * Comparisons across cars/trims on BHP, torque, and displacement, city/hwy…

It takes some work, but Wikipedia is good at aggregating info like this. Lots of links and info about underlying platform and so forth. Like the 2010 model had this 3.0 engine, but the 2011 has a different 3.0 engine that's more reliable.

Re: Showroom - New-car research

#50

Post by nicksergeant » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 5:23 PM UTC

adrianpike wrote: post #31

nicksergeant wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a note on us calling this an MVP: we've probably used that too loosely. This is more of a proof of concept to see if there's demand in this space. We believe there is, and wanted to show what we are starting with.

There's definite and obvious demand for making the car shopping (and purchasing, especially) experience less painful. It's a sad state of affairs when getting a loan was the easiest part of the experience. I don't think you've fully decided on the problem you're trying to solve though. Is it comparing my new car options across manufacturers? What are the key deciding factors for someone getting a new car? Who are you…

Appreciate the insight. We definitely are in a super-alpha state where we don't really know what we're targeting yet. And by "we" I mean me and two others, doing this on the side :-p

Hopefully after a few iterations, we can get a better grasp on what we're trying to do and who we're doing it for.