By Nikki Waghani, Sean Soni, Sharlene Chiu, Margaret Yu
The data say that different cars get vastly different mileage, and mileage also varies from highway to city driving. We want to tell this story because we want to educate consumers on the difference between cars and styles of driving when it comes to gas mileage. Thus we have created a choose your own adventure game where the choice of car at the onset affects how the scenarios play out, with an emphasis on gas mileage, and a goal of acquiring “likes” along the way. Our audience is specifically young professionals who are thinking about buying a BMW. We plan to place our game in a kiosk in BMW dealerships. Our goals are to educate consumers about their choices, and encourage consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars in order to help BMW meet government requirements regarding the average fuel efficiency of their fleet.
Our data is sourced from the 2016 information at fueleconomy.gov, and is the result of testing done by the EPA as well as by vehicle manufacturers with oversight from the EPA. Using this data, we’ve designed a quick, easy, and fun way for someone entering a dealership to learn about the brand’s cars while figuring out what might best suit their needs. The goal is not to sell a particular car – this would be impossible as each person’s needs are very different – we will, however, help them learn the differences between a brand’s numerous cars without feeling overwhelmed. In order to encourage the customer to play multiple rounds of this game with different cars, our kiosk will print out a coupon for free add-ons (such as window tint or undercoating) each time the game is played. By playing multiple rounds of this game, the customer will get a feel for how much money they can save by buying a more fuel-efficient electric or hybrid car, and what some of the potential tradeoffs may be. Our game also integrates educational facts into the game, such as the fact that fuel economy is better on the highway than in the city, and going above 60mph on the highway reduces fuel economy. This game is much more effective than simply presenting fuel economy data, as it allows the consumer to interact with the data rather than just read it.