Variation modes of vehicle interior roominess

Abstract

Vehicle interior roominess is one of the key factors for buyers’ satisfaction. Principal component analysis, principal component regression, and correspondence analysis are applied to understand the modes of variation for interior roominess among 15 dimensions from 76 passenger vehicles, to predict buyers’ satisfaction and to identify dimensions with unique proportions. Three variation modes are found: (1) the interior plan-view variation mode (plan-view = vehicle length × width) shows the largest difference between small and large vehicles, (2) the vehicle height variation mode exposes the difference between the short and tall vehicles, and (3) the greenhouse-shape variation model reveals the difference between sleek and boxy vehicles. Domestic brands are found to receive lower satisfaction even though they are similar in the 15 dimensions. The knee clearance for the second-row shows the largest difference in proportion followed by the diagonal head clearances for the first and the second-rows.