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.
To install the latest development version from GitHub:
# install.packages("devtools")
library("devtools")
install_github("rOpenGov/mpg")
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).