Introduction
With the rise of Tesla, alternative fuel vehicles have been drawing so much attention and become one of the most significant symbols of technology. Although there is still controversy about alternative fuel vehicles, it’s already changing our ways of life. In 2018, there were 203 new AFV (alternative fuel vehicles) and HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) models released all over the world according to U.S. Department of Energy. As the biggest AFV market, the United States has been building the network of alternative fuel stations to support the vehicles and promote the development of the AFVs. Also, each state issued different laws and incentives regarding alternative fuels. Through this project, I want to learn the distribution status of alternative fuel stations in the U.S. and how each state rule and incent alternative fuel vehicles.
Inspirations
I found some interesting map projects that inspired me to choose the data and design the map.
Fig. 1 Data are from the US Election Atlas and US Census Bureau pooled estimates of Medicaid coverage for 2011-2015. Coverage estimates may also include other low-income public health programs. Data are incomplete for Alaska and a handful of other counties.
This is a map (Fig. 1) about Trump’s election. I really like the way it uses colors. the legend on the top shows a clear dimension with very beautiful colors. It is hard to choose colors especially when you need to differentiate two different dimensions. The borders of each state are in black while the borders of small administrative districts are in white. All colors used on this map are pretty clean and easy to distinguish.
Fig. 2 Bussed Out | How America Moves Its Homeless
I found this data(Fig. 2) by randomly searching for the map projects. This looks like a student project. I like the design of this map. The inner shadow added an old school feeling to the map with the HERE style basemap. The sizes of buffers are pretty straightforward for the comparison. However, some elements of this single map are confusing. It is not clear on this map what the red dots mean. And there is no exact value given for the bar charts. The big number on the center is a little confusing too. That said, I like to see a big dataset showing on a map and composing a beautiful artwork aesthetically.
Tools & Dataset
I used Carto to create the map. Carto is a web-based mapping tool. I like its interactions, customizable visual elements, and how it can analyze the data. However, since it is web-based, there might be bugs. Through the mapping process, I figured some of the bugs by trying to reload the webpage. But there were still some unknown coming up which I don’t know why. I think it would be better if Carto could tell me more details about some of the errors (for example, the error occurring when it cannot load the data).
Fig. 3 https://afdc.energy.gov/data_download
I found the dataset from Alternative Fuels Data Center. The data they have is all up to date and continuously updating. When downloading the data, there are very useful options (fig. 3) for people to target specific data they are looking for.
I downloaded the full data of alternative fuel stations in the U.S. The columns include fuel type, station name, address, open date, etc. The unsatisfying thing is there is no way to get the geojson link of the data so I couldn’t update the map dynamically. I also downloaded the data of all the laws and incentives related to alternative fuels issued by each state.
Process & Visualization
I uploaded the AF station data to Carto and get all the dots on the U.S. map. Then, I used colors the differentiate the types of stations. I put the legend to explain the colors as well as 2 interactive widgets for filtering states and fuel station types. On the bottom of the map, there is a timeline showing when the stations were built. When clicked, the dot shows the details of the station through a pop-up window.
I tried to use the laws and incentives data but Carto didn’t recognize the state name. So I downloaded the official U.S. shapefile and manually input the numbers to each state. To avoid having similar colors, I used shades of gray as the background to present the numbers of laws and incentives of each data.
According to the map, we can see that the most popular alternative fuel is electric. A large number of the electric fuel stations are located in east and west coasts. In San Francisco and New York, the density of electric fuel stations is super high compared to anywhere else. However, it seems that there is a big trend of E85 fuel stations in northern Mideast while some southern Mideast areas are in favor of Liquefied Petroleum Gas. It is interesting that the first alternative fuel station can be traced back to 1950. And in 2006, more stations started to be built when Tesla began to emerge.
For the laws and incentives, it is not surprising that the states with larger populations and better finance usually have more laws and incentives regarding alternative fuels.
Reflection
Although there are some unavoidable bugs, Carto is a great tool in terms of its lightness and flexibility. To use Carto, we usually just put a couple of the existing maps together, but it is interesting to discover some interesting patterns through this process. I was not satisfied with the background of states. I didn’t find a good way to show the exact value of each state through a widget since I manually input the data. I also tried to make both dots and background clickable, but there is a conflict if two clickables items overlap. In general, I would find a better way to investigate and revise the laws and incentive data if I got more time.