mpg

Fuel economy data from FuelEconomy.gov

Bored of mtcars? Want to play around with tcl/tk menus in R? Looking to buy a new car? The mpg package provides access to the FuelEconomy.gov API, allowing users to pull in both vehicle-specific and comprehensive U.S. fuel economy data from all available makes, models, and years since 1984 (and provides easy access to Excel-formatted data files going back to 1978). The package also wraps the My MPG service, which allows drivers to upload their own fuel usage data.

The package is released under GPL-2 and all data accessible via the API is in the public domain.

Using the package

To pull data from the FuelEconomy API, one needs to know the vehicle identification number for a specific make-model-year. mpg therefore provides a set of functions: feYears, feMakes, feModels, and feOptions for sequentially and interactively retrieving the vehicle identification number. An interactive wrapper function pickVehicle simplifies this process by running through those functions as either (1) tcl/tk menus or (2) text-based menus in the R console. An example of the latter menu version is shown here:

> pickVehicle(graphics=FALSE)
Year 

 1: 2015   2: 2014   3: 2013   4: 2012   5: 2011   6: 2010   7: 2009   8: 2008   9: 2007  10: 2006  11: 2005  12: 2004  13: 2003  14: 2002  15: 2001
16: 2000  17: 1999  18: 1998  19: 1997  20: 1996  21: 1995  22: 1994  23: 1993  24: 1992  25: 1991  26: 1990  27: 1989  28: 1988  29: 1987  30: 1986
31: 1985  32: 1984  

Selection: 2
Make 

 1: Acura               2: Aston Martin        3: Audi                4: Bentley             5: BMW                 6: Bugatti          
 7: Buick               8: Cadillac            9: Chevrolet          10: Chrysler           11: Dodge              12: Ferrari          
13: Fiat               14: Ford               15: GMC                16: Honda              17: Hyundai            18: Infiniti         
19: Jaguar             20: Jeep               21: Kia                22: Lamborghini        23: Land Rover         24: Lexus            
25: Lincoln            26: Lotus              27: Maserati           28: Mazda              29: Mercedes-Benz      30: MINI             
31: Mitsubishi         32: Nissan             33: Porsche            34: Ram                35: Rolls-Royce        36: Roush Performance
37: Scion              38: smart              39: SRT                40: Subaru             41: Toyota             42: Volkswagen       
43: Volvo              

Selection: 43
Model 

 1: S60 AWD
 2: S60 FWD
 3: S80 AWD
 4: S80 FWD
 5: XC60 AWD
 6: XC60 FWD
 7: XC70 AWD
 8: XC70 FWD
 9: XC90 AWD
10: XC90 FWD

Selection: 1
Options 

1: Auto (S6), 6 cyl, 3.0 L, Turbo
2: Auto (S6), 5 cyl, 2.5 L, Turbo

Selection: 1
[1] "33658"

With a vehicle identification number in hand, it is easy to pull down vehicle-specific fuel economy and emissions data:

> feVehicle(33658)
Vehicle data:
                           value
atvType                     NULL
barrels08              15.689436
barrelsA08                   0.0
charge120                    0.0
charge240                    0.0
city08                        18
city08U                     17.9
cityA08                        0
cityA08U                     0.0
cityCD                       0.0
cityE                        0.0
cityUF                       0.0
co2                          425
co2A                          -1
co2TailpipeAGpm              0.0
co2TailpipeGpm             425.0
comb08                        21
comb08U                  20.5531
combA08                        0
combA08U                     0.0
combE                        0.0
combinedCD                   0.0
combinedUF                   0.0
cylinders                      6
displ                        3.0
drive            All-Wheel Drive
engId                         23

...

Emissions List:
         efid    id salesArea score scoreAlt smartwayScore standard     stdText
 EVVXJ03.0U2T 33658         3   5.0     -1.0            -1       B5       Bin 5
 EVVXJ03.0U2T 33658         7   6.0     -1.0            -1       U2 LEV-II ULEV


> feEmissions(33658)
         efid    id salesArea score scoreAlt smartwayScore standard     stdText
 EVVXJ03.0U2T 33658         3   5.0     -1.0            -1       B5       Bin 5
 EVVXJ03.0U2T 33658         7   6.0     -1.0            -1       U2 LEV-II ULEV

Integration with the My MPG site also enables the download of user-submitted fuel economy data, either as averages for a vehicle type or at the individual-level (i.e., a single driver’s reported fuel data):

> mympgAvg(26425)
       avgMpg cityPercent highwayPercent maxMpg minMpg recordCount vehicleId
 49.363820544          45             55     74     35         187     26425

> mympgAll(26425)
    cityPercent highwayPercent                  lastDate      mpg state vehicleId
1            50             50 2011-04-10T00:00:00-04:00 73.80000    MI     26425
2            10             90 2011-01-02T00:00:00-05:00 62.20000    FL     26425
3            60             40 2011-05-26T00:00:00-04:00 60.88670    TX     26425
4            60             40 2009-07-16T00:00:00-04:00 60.30000    IL     26425
5            23             77 2014-01-20T00:00:00-05:00 60.18105    AZ     26425
6            10             90 2012-06-06T00:00:00-04:00 60.00000    NJ     26425
7            20             80 2013-05-19T00:00:00-04:00 59.90000    VA     26425
8            45             55 2011-05-23T00:00:00-04:00 59.76956    MA     26425
9            72             28 2014-01-21T00:00:00-05:00 59.67671    WA     26425
10           20             80 2009-09-01T00:00:00-04:00 59.00000    ME     26425
11           60             40 2012-02-18T00:00:00-05:00 58.84354    CA     26425
...

With the My MPG API it is also possible to identify sets of individual vehicle data using mympgVehicles (based on make and model retrieved from mympgMakes and mympgModels or through interactive menus similar to pickVehicle by specifying pick=TRUE in either mympgAvg or mympgAll).