Motor Trend MPG Data Analysis

Peter T

April 20, 2024

Created with knitr

Executive Summary This report analyzed the relationship between transmission type (manual or au-
tomatic) and miles per gallon (MPG). The report set out to determine which transmission type produces
a higher MPG. The mtcars dataset was used for this analysis. A t-test between automatic and manual
transmission vehicles shows that manual transmission vehicles have a 7.245 greater MPG than automatic
transmission vehicles. After fitting multiple linear regressions, analysis showed that the manual transmis-
sion contributed less significantly to MPG, only an improvement of 1.81 MPG. Other variables, weight,
horsepower, and number of cylinders contributed more significantly to the overall MPG of vehicles.

Load Data Load the dataset and convert categorical variables to factors.

library(ggplot2)
data(mtcars)
head(mtcars, n=3)
dim(mtcars)
mtcars$cyl <- as.factor(mtcars$cyl)
mtcars$vs <- as.factor(mtcars$vs)
mtcars$am <- factor(mtcars$am)
mtcars$gear <- factor(mtcars$gear)
mtcars$carb <- factor(mtcars$carb)
attach(mtcars)

Exploratory Analysis See Appendix Figure I Exploratory Box graph that compares Automatic and
Manual transmission MPG. The graph leads us to believe that there is a significant increase in MPG when
for vehicles with a manual transmission vs automatic.

Statistical Inference T-Test transmission type and MPG

testResults <- t.test(mpg ~ am)

testResults$p.value

## [1] 0.001373638

The T-Test rejects the null hypothesis that the difference between transmission types is 0.

1
testResults$estimate

## mean in group 0 mean in group 1

## 17.14737 24.39231

The difference estimate between the 2 transmissions is 7.24494 MPG in favor of manual.

Regression Analysis Fit the full model of the data

fullModelFit <- lm(mpg ~ ., data = mtcars)

summary(fullModelFit) # results hidden
summary(fullModelFit)$coeff # results hidden

Since none of the coefficients have a p-value less than 0.05 we cannot conclude which variables are more
statistically significant.
Backward selection to determine which variables are most statistically significant

stepFit <- step(fullModelFit)

summary(stepFit) # results hidden
summary(stepFit)$coeff # results hidden

The new model has 4 variables (cylinders, horsepower, weight, transmission). The R-squared value of 0.8659
confirms that this model explains about 87% of the variance in MPG. The p-values also are statistically
significantly because they have a p-value less than 0.05. The coefficients conclude that increasing the number
of cylinders from 4 to 6 with decrease the MPG by 3.03. Further increasing the cylinders to 8 with decrease
the MPG by 2.16. Increasing the horsepower is decreases MPG 3.21 for every 100 horsepower. Weight
decreases the MPG by 2.5 for each 1000 lbs increase. A Manual transmission improves the MPG by 1.81.

Residuals & Diagnostics Residual Plot See Appendix Figure II

The plots conclude:

1. The randomness of the Residuals vs. Fitted plot supports the assumption of independence
2. The points of the Normal Q-Q plot following closely to the line conclude that the distribution of
residuals is normal
3. The Scale-Location plot random distribution confirms the constant variance assumption
4. Since all points are within the 0.05 lines, the Residuals vs. Leverage concludes that there are no outliers

sum((abs(dfbetas(stepFit)))>1)

## [1] 0

Conclusion There is a difference in MPG based on transmission type. A manual transmission will have a
slight MPG boost. However, it seems that weight, horsepower, & number of cylinders are more statistically
significant when determining MPG.

2
Appendix Figures

30
25 MPG by Transmission Type
MPG

20
15
10

0 1

Transmission Type (0 = Automatic, 1 = Manual)

I

3
 Standardized residuals
Residuals vs Fitted Q−Q Residuals
Toyota
FiatCorolla Toyota Corolla
Residuals

128 Fiat 128

Chrysler Imperial
4

1
0

−1
−4

Datsun 710

15 20 25 30 −2 −1 0 1 2

Fitted values Theoretical Quantiles

Standardized residuals

Standardized residuals
Scale−Location Residuals vs Leverage
Toyota
FiatCorolla
128 Toyota Corolla 1
Chrysler Imperial

2
Chrysler Imperial 0.5
1.0

0
Cook's
Toyotadistance
Corona
0.0

−2
0.5

15 20 25 30 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Fitted values Leverage

II