Term Project, Phase 1

Alex Boswell 301261407 aboswell@sfu.ca

Amirhossein Tehrani 30117953 aabolgha@sfu.ca
Justin Aoki 301238151 jkaoki@sfu.ca
Tahsin Alam 301233675 tahsina@sfu.ca

Abstract

Introduction
As we all know, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are directly affecting climate change.
Studies show that for every 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature in the United States
caused by carbon dioxide, the air pollution results in approximately 1000 additional deaths and
many more cases of respiratory illness. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/co-
010908.html
Therefore, our group decided to address this issue as we believe that it can and should
be resolved in the near future to protect the next generations from harmful CO2 emissions.
Throughout this project we will use the data collected to find correlations between different
factors pertaining to CO2 emissions, and hopefully find a way to improve the efficiency of
different automobiles. We chose to use BMW and Toyota vehicles in our project because of the
abundance of these vehicles we see on the road in Vancouver. These brands also sit in
different price brackets and with Toyota generally known for efficient cars and BMW for
performance luxury cars, we feel like this data set encompasses a large population of vehicles
on the road today.

Data Collection
To find our data, we used the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s
database since they specialize in conducting environmental research and assessments. They
test a whole variety of cars every year so we decided to pick two popular cars and use 100
samples from their 2016 fuel economy tests which can be found here
https://www3.epa.gov/otaq/tcldata.htm. The EPA tested all of the cars in a similar way, limiting
other variables from affecting the results. On the EPA website it states, “The emission rates
assume an average, properly maintained vehicle, operating on typical gasoline on a warm
summer day.” The dependent variable are the grams of CO2 emissions released from the cars
while the independent variable is the model of the car because the model will influence the CO2
emissions.
Raw Data
2016 Emissions For BMW and Toyota

BMW - CO2(grams/mile) Toyota- CO2(grams/mile)

320.03 182.15 202.86 298.37 311.58 123.7048 170.4522 183.1068 195.5228 186.3186
186.01 308.7 335.65 179.28 178.96 133.6321 171.6998 117.4249 132.9248 123.5674
191.34 321.11 205.61 315.57 298.21 194.0019 135.8722 115.2632 124.2234 117.8271
326.22 194.12 313.69 180.35 181.35 182.9164 206.4791 180.1867 176.3922 153.2873
295.61 314.6112 323.97 300.99 184.3284 125.4404 139.18 161.5399 151.9797 151.5235
309.63 196.723 201.71 173.76 309.8486 113.8602 170.7468 216.873 209.3796 176.1209
179.13 314.399 291.87 297.8 241.11 154.3815 188.1015 140.4235 128.8905 173.1761
302.25 195.4345 173.83 172.37 159.21 149.972 194.0013 135.2642 130.6068 105.4095
309.96 329.3774 289.965 299.04 247.97 152.3035 156.6726 161.1788 173.579 114.7368

312.56 308.62 169.3209 180.32 154.67 168.3276 169.0636 183.5888 148.8848 153.7233