In Spanish, to use él or ella, you need to know if the noun is masculine or feminine.
All nouns are one or the other: masculine or feminine.
Pronouns can refer to people or things.
However, the él or ella for masculine and feminine nouns is used in dialogue slightly differently at times. Cerca de él is not wrong for close to it for a car, but generally, in Spanish, you would use the actual noun there or turn the sentence around.
In Spanish, it would be more usual to say:
El coche está cerca de mí.
Real Academia Española
él
- pron. person. 3.ª pers. m., f. y n. Forma que, en nominativo o precedida de preposición, designa a la persona, el animal o la cosa de los que se habla, por oposición a quien enuncia el mensaje y a su destinatario.
[ejemplo] Ellos son los culpables. Le llevé el informe, pero no se refirió a él en ningún momento.
Translation: Third person pronoun, masculine, feminine and neuter. A form which in the nominative [as a subject] or preceded by a preposition designates the thing, animal or thing which is/are being talked about as opposed to whom utters the message and its receiver.
él y ella in Spanish