Data for the Heck of It, Hybrids vs. Gas prices
I'm working on a talk for a symposium in April. The topic is "Sensors for Transportation". Along the way I visited the Department of Energy " Alternative Fuels Data Center " website. They have a host of accessible data showing everything from types of electric vehicles to average consumption prices of various fuels. Being that I'm a data enthusiast I thought I'd generate a silly plot of hybrid electric vehicle sales versus average US fuel prices. (left axis) U.S. Hybrid Electric Vehicle Sales compared to (right axis) Average U.S. Fuel (gasoline) cost per gallon. Data is from http://www.afdc.energy.gov/ The overlay suggests, as is probably obvious to many, that increased fuel costs result in more people buying fuel efficient vehicles. One might also make some other hypotheses from this plot: Fuel prices play a majority incentive in the masses buying more efficient vehicles. Thus, policy makers should maybe look to steeply increase gasoline ta...