Continuing on the below post, I am going to use a support vector machine (SVM) to predict combined miles per gallon for all 2019 motor vehicles.

Part 1: Using Decision Trees and Random Forest to Predict MPG for 2019 Vehicles

Part 2: Using Gradient Boosted Machine to Predict MPG for 2019 Vehicles

The raw data is located on the EPA government site

The variables/features I am using for the models are: Engine displacement (size), number of cylinders, transmission type, number of gears, air inspired method, regenerative braking type, battery capacity Ah, drivetrain, fuel type, cylinder deactivate, and variable valve. 

There are 1253 vehicles in the dataset (does not include pure electric vehicles) summarized below.

fuel_economy_combined    eng_disp        num_cyl       transmission
 Min.   :11.00         Min.   :1.000   Min.   : 3.000   A  :301     
 1st Qu.:19.00         1st Qu.:2.000   1st Qu.: 4.000   AM : 46     
 Median :23.00         Median :3.000   Median : 6.000   AMS: 87     
 Mean   :23.32         Mean   :3.063   Mean   : 5.533   CVT: 50     
 3rd Qu.:26.00         3rd Qu.:3.600   3rd Qu.: 6.000   M  :148     
 Max.   :58.00         Max.   :8.000   Max.   :16.000   SA :555     
                                                        SCV: 66     
   num_gears                      air_aspired_method
 Min.   : 1.000   Naturally Aspirated      :523     
 1st Qu.: 6.000   Other                    :  5     
 Median : 7.000   Supercharged             : 55     
 Mean   : 7.111   Turbocharged             :663     
 3rd Qu.: 8.000   Turbocharged+Supercharged:  7     
 Max.   :10.000                                     
                                                    
                 regen_brake   batt_capacity_ah 
             No        :1194   Min.   : 0.0000  
 Electrical Regen Brake:  57   1st Qu.: 0.0000  
 Hydraulic Regen Brake :   2   Median : 0.0000  
                               Mean   : 0.3618  
                               3rd Qu.: 0.0000  
                               Max.   :20.0000  
                                                
                     drive    cyl_deactivate
 2-Wheel Drive, Front   :345  Y: 172
 2-Wheel Drive, Rear    :345  N:1081
 4-Wheel Drive          :174  
 All Wheel Drive        :349  
 Part-time 4-Wheel Drive: 40  
                              
                              
                                      fuel_type   
 Diesel, ultra low sulfur (15 ppm, maximum): 28           
 Gasoline (Mid Grade Unleaded Recommended) : 16           
 Gasoline (Premium Unleaded Recommended)   :298                 
 Gasoline (Premium Unleaded Required)      :320                 
 Gasoline (Regular Unleaded Recommended)   :591                 
                                                                
                                                                
 variable_valve
 N:  38        
 Y:1215        

Starting with an untuned base model:

set.seed(123)
m_svm_untuned <- svm(formula = fuel_economy_combined ~ .,
                     data    = test)

pred_svm_untuned <- predict(m_svm_untuned, test)

yhat <- pred_svm_untuned
y <- test$fuel_economy_combined
svm_stats_untuned <- postResample(yhat, y)

svm_stats_untuned
     RMSE  Rsquared       MAE 
2.3296249 0.8324886 1.4964907 

Similar to the results for the untuned boosted model.  I am going to run a grid search and tune the support vector machine.

hyper_grid <- expand.grid(
  cost = 2^seq(-5,5,1),
  gamma= 2^seq(-5,5,1)  
)
e <- NULL

for(j in 1:nrow(hyper_grid)){
  set.seed(123)
  m_svm_untuned <- svm(
    formula = fuel_economy_combined ~ .,
    data    = train,
    gamma = hyper_grid$gamma[j],
    cost = hyper_grid$cost[j]
  )  
  
  pred_svm_untuned <-predict(
    m_svm_untuned,
    newdata = test
  )
  
  yhat <- pred_svm_untuned
  y <- test$fuel_economy_combined
  e[j] <- postResample(yhat, y)[1]
  cat(j, "\n")
}

which.min(e)  #minimum MSE

The best tuned support vector machine has a cost of 32 and a gamma of .25.

I am going to run this combination:

set.seed(123)
m_svm_tuned <- svm(
  formula = fuel_economy_combined ~ .,
  data    = test,
  gamma = .25,
  cost = 32,
  scale=TRUE
  )  

pred_svm_tuned <- predict(m_svm_tuned,test)

yhat<-pred_svm_tuned 
y<-test$fuel_economy_combined
svm_stats<-postResample(yhat,y)

svm_stats
     RMSE  Rsquared       MAE 
0.9331948 0.9712492 0.7133039 

The tuned support vector machine outperforms the gradient boosted model substantially with a MSE of .87 vs a MSE of 3.25 for the gradient boosted model and a MSE of 3.67 for the random forest.

summary(m_svm_tuned)

Call:
svm(formula = fuel_economy_combined ~ ., data = test, gamma = 0.25, cost = 32, scale = TRUE)


Parameters:
   SVM-Type:  eps-regression 
 SVM-Kernel:  radial 
       cost:  32 
      gamma:  0.25 
    epsilon:  0.1 


Number of Support Vectors:  232

sum(abs(res)<=1) / 314
[1] 0.8503185  

The model is able to predict 85% of vehicles within 1 MPG of EPA estimate. Considering I am not rounding this is a great result.

The model also does a much better job with outliers as none of the models predicted the Hyundai Ioniq well.

tmp[which(abs(res) > svm_stats[1] * 3), ] #what cars are 3 se residuals
                 Division        Carline fuel_economy_combined pred_svm_tuned
641 HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY          Ioniq                    55       49.01012
568                TOYOTA      CAMRY XSE                    26       22.53976
692            Volkswagen Arteon 4Motion                    23       26.45806
984            Volkswagen          Atlas                    19       22.23552