{"id":42743,"date":"2011-09-21T15:01:06","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T19:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=42743"},"modified":"2011-09-21T15:01:06","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T19:01:06","slug":"smaller-engines-are-proving-big-sellers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2011\/09\/smaller-engines-are-proving-big-sellers\/","title":{"rendered":"Smaller Engines Are Proving Big Sellers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The majority of Ford F-150s are now being ordered with 6-cylinder engines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearly six of every 10 Ford F-Series pickups now are being purchased with V-6 powertrains, Ford officials confirm, a significant shift away from the classic V-8s that have long been the engines of choice among full-size truck buyers.<\/p>\n

The downsizing reflects a variety of factors, according to top Ford officials, including a growing emphasis on fuel economy among all U.S. buyers.\u00a0 But Ford is also benefitting from the development of a new generation of high-performance V-6s that can match and, in some cases, even exceed the performance and towing power of bigger eights, even while delivering significantly better mileage.<\/p>\n

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Stay in the Know!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shift seen by Ford isn\u2019t limited to big trucks.\u00a0 Across the board, American motorists are migrating to smaller powertrains \u2013 and several makers are responding by planning big changes in their engine line-ups.\u00a0 Hyundai has largely switched to I-4s for its mainstream line-up, and Volvo soon plans to shift to 4- and even 3-cylinder engines across the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are looking at fuel economy more than ever,\u201d says Ford\u2019s President of the Americas Mark Fields, who adds that the key selling point is that with the new engines, \u201cyou don\u2019t have to compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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The production version of the Volvo Concept You will offer only a four-cylinder powertrain line-up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shift at Ford began with the launch of the 2011 F-Series, Ford introducing both a conventional V-6 and a V-6 version of its increasingly popular EcoBoost engine line-up.\u00a0 Together, they accounted for a full 57% of F-150 sales in August, the EcoBoost engine alone accounting for 41% of demand for the nation\u2019s best-selling pickup.<\/p>\n

The EcoBoost has become the high-profile star in the Ford line-up.\u00a0 It uses a number of technologies normally found on the most modern diesels, including high-pressure fuel injection and advanced turbochargers.\u00a0 With the engines used in the F-Series as well as Ford\u2019s high-performance Taurus SHO that allows the maker to advertise it is delivering \u201cthe performance of a V-8 with the fuel-economy of a V-6.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cConventional wisdom would have said not to do this,\u201d admitted Ford\u2019s Fields.\u00a0 If anything, recent years had seen a push for even bigger and more powerful V-8s in vehicles like the F-Series, and competing models such as the Chevrolet Silverado, Chrysler\u2019s Ram and Toyota\u2019s Tundra.<\/p>\n

But Ford has seen a general trend towards powertrain downsizing.\u00a0 In fact, industry analysts like Joe Phillippi, of AutoTrends Consulting, suggest that U.S. motorists seem much more comfortable with shrinking powertrains than smaller cars.\u00a0 While compact and subcompact vehicles have clearly gained share as fuel prices have soared to near-record levels, sales have not matched what some forecasters had anticipated.<\/p>\n

The move to smaller engines can be seen in all segments of the marketplace.\u00a0 Even makers of high-performance luxury manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz are opting for smaller displacements and fewer cylinders.\u00a0 The good news for those who like horsepower and torque is that direct injection, superchargers and turbochargers can often make up the difference \u2013 and then some.<\/p>\n

Some of the latest 4- and 6-cylinder engines are churning out as much as 100 to 125 horsepower per liter, significantly more than even the most high-performance V-8s of the past.<\/p>\n

The good news is that a smaller engine is also a lighter one, and that, in turn, allows for additional weight savings in a vehicle, as Hyundai realized when it chose to go with a 4-cylinder-only strategy with the latest-generation midsize Sonata.\u00a0 With a smaller engine cradle, among other things, it meant that the weight of the basic platform was cut by more than 100 pounds compared to the previous model, noted Hyundai Motor America CEO John Krafcik.<\/p>\n

Hyundai still has V-6s and -8s in its line-up.\u00a0 It added an even bigger 5.7-liter powerplant, in fact, for the newly-updated Genesis luxury sedan earlier this year.\u00a0 But among mainstream models, where the maker is pressing a 40 mpg marketing strategy, I-4s will likely remain the engine of choice.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Volvo, the now Chinese-owned Swedish automaker\u2019s CEO Stephan Jacoby announcing \u201cWe will downsize our powertrain range to only 4-cylinders\u201d going forward.\u00a0 But he also promised that the new engine line-up will deliver not only about 35% mileage but also a fair bit more power than the V-6s Volvo offers today.<\/p>\n

Actually, Jacoby\u2019s comments at the Frankfurt Motor Show were somewhat inaccurate, he later corrected.\u00a0 The maker is also planning to introduce new 3-cylinder engines as part of the Volvo Environmental Architecture powertrain family.\u00a0 The first of the 1.5-liter I-3 and 2.0-liter I-4 engines will begin rolling out in 2013, with the new line-up expected to completely take over by 2020.<\/p>\n

Sixes and eights won\u2019t vanish entirely.\u00a0 The bigger engines will likely remain popular in muscle cars like the Ford Mustang, though even there the maker continues to see more and more buyers shift to the smaller six it offers \u2013 especially after upgrading that engine to 305 horsepower.<\/p>\n

But Ford will continue downsizing elsewhere, the maker next set to introduce a 3-cylinder version of its EcoBoost for use in the subcompact Fiesta and other small cars.<\/p>\n

Fiat, meanwhile, is selling a two-cylinder Twin Air engine in Europe that may soon make its way to the States.<\/p>\n

Smaller engines delivering more power and better mileage appears to be a winning combination for U.S. motorists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The majority of Ford’s F-150 pickups are now being ordered with 6-cylinder engines. Indeed, American buyers are rapidly downsizing the engines they opt for and some makers are following suit, eliminating 8s, even 6s from their line-ups, reports TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42743"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=42743"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=42743"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=42743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}