Transmission Type Effect on MPG
Andy
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Abstract
The report analyzes data for 32 different cars and checks what variables most affect miles per gallon for cars. It then focuses on transmission type to see how well automatic transmission performs against manual transmission in MPG.
Road Tests Data
A data frame with 32 observations on 11 variables:
- mpg - miles per gallon
- cyl - number of cylinders
- disp - displacement (cubic inch)
- hp - gross horsepower
- drat - rear axle ratio
- wt - weight (lb / 1000)
- qsec - 1/4 mile time
- vs - V/S
- am - transmission (0 = automatic, 1 = manual)
- gear - number of forward gears
- carb - number of carburetors
data(mtcars)
head(mtcars, 5)## mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
## Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46 0 1 4 4
## Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02 0 1 4 4
## Datsun 710 22.8 4 108 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
## Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44 1 0 3 1
## Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02 0 0 3 2Exploratory data analysis
Plotting mpg vs transmission
mtcars$am <- as.factor(mtcars$am)
plot(x=mtcars$am, y=mtcars$mpg,
main="MPG vs Transmission type",
xlab="Transmission (0 - auto, 1 - manual)",
ylab="miles per gallon")
Boxplot seems to show that manual transmission has better average mpg. Also, the bottom 25% of manual transmission has better mpg than bottom 75% of automatic transmission.
Hypothesis testing
Let \(\mu\) be the average mpg. Let \(\mu_{a}\) and \(\mu_{m}\) be average mpg for automatic transmission and manual transmission, respectively. Then:
\(H_0 : \mu_{m} = \mu_{a}\)
and
\(H_a : \mu_{m} > \mu_{a}\)
Doing Student’s test:
auto <- subset(mtcars, mtcars$am == 1)$mpg
manual <- subset(mtcars, mtcars$am == 0)$mpg
t.test(auto, manual, alternative="greater")##
## Welch Two Sample t-test
##
## data: auto and manual
## t = 3.7671, df = 18.332, p-value = 0.0006868
## alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is greater than 0
## 95 percent confidence interval:
## 3.913256 Inf
## sample estimates:
## mean of x mean of y
## 24.39231 17.14737which has a p-value of 0.00069 - highly significant.
Regression Analysis
We start by using all independent variables in regression model:
fit.all <- lm(mpg ~ ., data=mtcars)
summary(fit.all)##
## Call:
## lm(formula = mpg ~ ., data = mtcars)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -3.4506 -1.6044 -0.1196 1.2193 4.6271
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 12.30337 18.71788 0.657 0.5181
## cyl -0.11144 1.04502 -0.107 0.9161
## disp 0.01334 0.01786 0.747 0.4635
## hp -0.02148 0.02177 -0.987 0.3350
## drat 0.78711 1.63537 0.481 0.6353
## wt -3.71530 1.89441 -1.961 0.0633 .
## qsec 0.82104 0.73084 1.123 0.2739
## vs 0.31776 2.10451 0.151 0.8814
## am1 2.52023 2.05665 1.225 0.2340
## gear 0.65541 1.49326 0.439 0.6652
## carb -0.19942 0.82875 -0.241 0.8122
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 2.65 on 21 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared: 0.869, Adjusted R-squared: 0.8066
## F-statistic: 13.93 on 10 and 21 DF, p-value: 3.793e-07However, due to issue with multicollinearity, none of the coefficient is deemed significant with most significant being weight (0.0633).
Applying step-wise algorithm to remove unnecessary variables:
fit.aic <- step(fit.all)## Start: AIC=70.9
## mpg ~ cyl + disp + hp + drat + wt + qsec + vs + am + gear + carb
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## - cyl 1 0.0799 147.57 68.915
## - vs 1 0.1601 147.66 68.932
## - carb 1 0.4067 147.90 68.986
## - gear 1 1.3531 148.85 69.190
## - drat 1 1.6270 149.12 69.249
## - disp 1 3.9167 151.41 69.736
## - hp 1 6.8399 154.33 70.348
## - qsec 1 8.8641 156.36 70.765
## <none> 147.49 70.898
## - am 1 10.5467 158.04 71.108
## - wt 1 27.0144 174.51 74.280
##
## Step: AIC=68.92
## mpg ~ disp + hp + drat + wt + qsec + vs + am + gear + carb
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## - vs 1 0.2685 147.84 66.973
## - carb 1 0.5201 148.09 67.028
## - gear 1 1.8211 149.40 67.308
## - drat 1 1.9826 149.56 67.342
## - disp 1 3.9009 151.47 67.750
## - hp 1 7.3632 154.94 68.473
## <none> 147.57 68.915
## - qsec 1 10.0933 157.67 69.032
## - am 1 11.8359 159.41 69.384
## - wt 1 27.0280 174.60 72.297
##
## Step: AIC=66.97
## mpg ~ disp + hp + drat + wt + qsec + am + gear + carb
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## - carb 1 0.6855 148.53 65.121
## - gear 1 2.1437 149.99 65.434
## - drat 1 2.2139 150.06 65.449
## - disp 1 3.6467 151.49 65.753
## - hp 1 7.1060 154.95 66.475
## <none> 147.84 66.973
## - am 1 11.5694 159.41 67.384
## - qsec 1 15.6830 163.53 68.200
## - wt 1 27.3799 175.22 70.410
##
## Step: AIC=65.12
## mpg ~ disp + hp + drat + wt + qsec + am + gear
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## - gear 1 1.565 150.09 63.457
## - drat 1 1.932 150.46 63.535
## <none> 148.53 65.121
## - disp 1 10.110 158.64 65.229
## - am 1 12.323 160.85 65.672
## - hp 1 14.826 163.35 66.166
## - qsec 1 26.408 174.94 68.358
## - wt 1 69.127 217.66 75.350
##
## Step: AIC=63.46
## mpg ~ disp + hp + drat + wt + qsec + am
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## - drat 1 3.345 153.44 62.162
## - disp 1 8.545 158.64 63.229
## <none> 150.09 63.457
## - hp 1 13.285 163.38 64.171
## - am 1 20.036 170.13 65.466
## - qsec 1 25.574 175.67 66.491
## - wt 1 67.572 217.66 73.351
##
## Step: AIC=62.16
## mpg ~ disp + hp + wt + qsec + am
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## - disp 1 6.629 160.07 61.515
## <none> 153.44 62.162
## - hp 1 12.572 166.01 62.682
## - qsec 1 26.470 179.91 65.255
## - am 1 32.198 185.63 66.258
## - wt 1 69.043 222.48 72.051
##
## Step: AIC=61.52
## mpg ~ hp + wt + qsec + am
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## - hp 1 9.219 169.29 61.307
## <none> 160.07 61.515
## - qsec 1 20.225 180.29 63.323
## - am 1 25.993 186.06 64.331
## - wt 1 78.494 238.56 72.284
##
## Step: AIC=61.31
## mpg ~ wt + qsec + am
##
## Df Sum of Sq RSS AIC
## <none> 169.29 61.307
## - am 1 26.178 195.46 63.908
## - qsec 1 109.034 278.32 75.217
## - wt 1 183.347 352.63 82.790summary(fit.aic)##
## Call:
## lm(formula = mpg ~ wt + qsec + am, data = mtcars)
##
## Residuals:
## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
## -3.4811 -1.5555 -0.7257 1.4110 4.6610
##
## Coefficients:
## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 9.6178 6.9596 1.382 0.177915
## wt -3.9165 0.7112 -5.507 6.95e-06 ***
## qsec 1.2259 0.2887 4.247 0.000216 ***
## am1 2.9358 1.4109 2.081 0.046716 *
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 2.459 on 28 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared: 0.8497, Adjusted R-squared: 0.8336
## F-statistic: 52.75 on 3 and 28 DF, p-value: 1.21e-11The new regression model only involves 3 variables (weight, qtr mile/sec, and transmission) and they are all significant. The model also has a \(R^2\) of .8497.
Furthermore, the coefficient for am1: 2.9358 tells us that the expected increase of mpg for manual transmission over automatic transmission is 2.9358.
Generating residual plot and various diagnostic plots to uncover any disturbing pattern:
plot(fit.aic)
Conclusion
The motor cars data indicates that it’s highly likely cars with manual transmission have higher mpg than cars with automatic transmission. The expected increase of mpg is about 2.9358.