R Shiny app: Advanced technology vehicles (ATV)

John Bonsak
24 January 2016

Context & Scope

Coursera project assignment
I made this Shiny Application as the project submission in the course “Developing Data Products” delivered through coursera by Johns Hopkins University

A look at cars with electric motors
While we're waiting for hydrogen/fuel cell cars, I thought a closer look at electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars was about time. Here you can play with some data for such vehicle models from 2010 through 2016

Data

  • Data kindly provided by fueleconomy.gov
  • I filtered it to only show newer electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars and hybrid cars
  • A few of the many available variables were chosen
  • Some splitting of the evMotor variable's content to extract motor kW, battery size and battery type
  • The youSaveSpend variable is directly from fueleconomy.gov, and is their representation of an estimate of how much you save or spend extra on a given car over a 5 year period, compared against an average car

A glimpse of the data excerpt

library(dplyr)
library(RCurl)
data <- getURL("https://goo.gl/Im1AeK", # github
               ssl.verifypeer=0L, 
               followlocation=1L)
elcars <- read.csv(text=data)
glimpse(sample_n(elcars, 10, replace=FALSE), width=90)

Observations: 10
Variables:
$ id                 (int) 32005, 35779, 32798, 37092, 30980, 37057, 35791, 31612, 32...
$ youSaveSpend       (int) 1750, 0, -1500, 3000, 2000, 1500, 1250, -2750, -250, 250
$ fuelCost08         (int) 850, 1200, 1500, 600, 1000, 900, 950, 1750, 1250, 1150
$ year               (int) 2011, 2015, 2013, 2016, 2011, 2016, 2015, 2012, 2013, 2015
$ make               (fctr) Kia, Lexus, Porsche, Toyota, Chevrolet, Lexus, Subaru, Vo...
$ model              (fctr) Optima Hybrid, GS 450h, Panamera S Hybrid, Prius c, Volt,...
$ atvType            (fctr) Hybrid, Hybrid, Hybrid, Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid, Hybrid, H...
$ drive              (fctr) Front-Wheel Drive, Rear-Wheel Drive, Rear-Wheel Drive, Fr...
$ VClass             (fctr) Midsize Cars, Midsize Cars, Large Cars, Compact Cars, Com...
$ evMotor            (fctr) 270V Li-Ion, 288V Ni-MH, 288V Ni-MH, 144V Ni-MH, 111 kW, ...
$ evMotorBatterySize (int) 270, 288, 288, 144, NA, 245, 101, 288, 288, 144
$ evMotorBatteryType (fctr) Li-Ion, Ni-MH, Ni-MH, Ni-MH, NA, Ni-MH, Ni-MH, Ni-MH, Ni-...
$ evMotorElKW        (int) NA, NA, NA, NA, 111, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA

Instructions

Note that there are four tabs in the app's navigation bar: Prediction, Plot, Data and About. The full user instructions are in the “About” tab

The images shown in the “Prediction” tab are just three random cars for each of the two prediction models, but are related to the kW or battery size you select

Try the app here: https://jbonsak.shinyapps.io/coursera-atvcars-app/

Code and app contents on github: https://github.com/jbonsak/coursera-atvcars-app