17.2 Small (?) luxury cars

In Figure 17.2 there were some low outliers for Rear-Wheel Drive cars, especially surprising for Minicompact and Subcompact Cars. Ordering the dataset in ascending order of mpg uncovers some unexpected classifications. Who would have thought that Rolls-Royces, Aston Martins, and Ferraris would be classified that way?

Figure 17.5: Numbers of cars by class for six car manufacturers

Lamborghini have only Two Seaters in the dataset and Ferrari mainly do. Minicompact, Subcompact, and Compact models were relatively commonly produced by all of the six luxury manufacturers barring Lamborghini.

According to the website maintainers: “The EPA classifies cars based on interior volume which is a combination of the passenger volume and luggage volume. The exterior dimensions or vehicle weight are not considered. The system has been in place since the mid-1970s and sometimes those classifications produce unexpected results.”