If this is a question about the meanings of words, that's really just an empirical question about their usage. If it's a question of whether "cars" forms a meaningful cluster in conceptspace, we have lots of different ways of addressing that question that entirely sidestep the Realism/Nominalism debate.

And if it is about how a fundamental aspect of reality -- identity and difference -- works then we don't. The debate about universals is ongoing with people like Roger Penrose and David Armstrong weighing in.

This sort of equivocation does not happen with key terms in a field that has its shit together.

Uh huh. So what exactly are physical laws?