Gas 2.0

Editor’s Note: Corey Weaver is a Ford Technical Expert and EcoBoost’s project leader.

One of the great challenges for automakers today is determining which technology or group of technologies will be the most effective in increasing fuel-efficiency and lowering greenhouse emissions - while still meeting the performance, quality and price car-buyers expect. The array of choices available and under development is significant, ranging from turbo charging, direct injection, six speed transmissions, electric power assist steering, weight reductions, electrification, bio fuels and hydrogen fuel cells.

We know there is a viable future for some of the most advanced technologies, but we also recognize not all of them are market-ready or affordable for consumers. Even advanced technologies take time to gain widespread acceptance. For instance, despite mainstream acceptance of hybrid technology, hybrids remain less than 3% of the market.

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We understand that customers want better fuel-economy, lower emissions and affordability now. And today, the most affordable technology in the United States is still the traditional gasoline powered internal combustion engine. The truth is the traditional gasoline ICE is here to stay for some time. So it is our job to continue to refine and improve gasoline engines to make them as fuel efficient as possible, while also working to develop alternatives, like electrified vehicles, in order to work toward the day when they too will become affordable and widely accepted.

So how do we meet our customers’ demands for better fuel-economy and affordability? At Ford, our near-term answer is our EcoBoost engine. One of the most basic tenets of sustainable living is getting more out of less. The less we consume the less impact we’ll have on our surroundings. That same strategy is behind Ford’s EcoBoost engine. In car-talk, it’s known as direct-injection with turbo charging. Drivers get the thrust of a V8 with the thirst of a V6, while EcoBoost I-4 engines will perform like the larger V6s, but with the fuel economy of the smaller engine. In more straightforward terms, it’s getting more power with less gas.

When I first started working in the 1990s on what became the EcoBoost project, my team was looking at ways to increase powertrain performance using the longstanding direct-injection technology. In those days, fuel-efficiency wasn’t top of mind for our customers – certainly not the way it is today. We determined that combining direct-injection with turbo charging allowed us to increase fuel-efficiency, without compromising the vehicle’s performance. In fact, the performance got better. Given the growing volatility of fuel prices, we recognized that this combination could be an important step toward providing a better product at an affordable price.

Today, EcoBoost offers up to 20 percent better fuel-economy and up to 15 percent reduced greenhouse emissions versus larger displacement engines. But even with the numbers to back it up, I’m still often asked about the true performance of EcoBoost: Can a more fuel-efficient V6 engine really perform as well as a traditionally more-expensive and less fuel-efficient V8 engine?

That question was put to the test earlier this year when Automobile Magazine and Motor Trend pitted the Lincoln MKS with a V6 EcoBoost engine against a handful of popular European V8s in a head to head challenge nearly 12,000 feet above sea level at Colorado’s Loveland Pass. We wanted to see if the V6 EcoBoost engine could beat out its luxury counterparts in this difficult hill-climb challenge. It performed well, beating most of the competition. The Lincoln MKS completed the course with the highest top-speed among the group, but ultimately placed second behind the BMW 550i in the race up the hill. Although we hoped to end up at the very top of the pack, finishing so high in the group made it very clear that EcoBoost, our smaller, more fuel-efficient engine, has earned its place in the luxury, high-performance vehicle market.

But EcoBoost is not designed solely for luxury cars. It has much broader applications. It has become a key component to our near- and mid-term powertrain strategy for global sustainability. Today, EcoBoost is offered in the Ford Taurus SHO, Lincoln MKS, Lincoln MKT and Ford Flex. Next year it will be offered in a 2.0L I-4 version. In 2010, an EcoBoost V6 will be available in the crown-jewel of Ford’s truck lineup, the F-150. And by 2013, it will be offered in more than 90 percent of Ford’s entire North American lineup.

That means we’re not talking about a few thousand cars with up to 20 percent improved fuel-economy on the road. We’re looking at millions of vehicles generating up to 15 percent less emissions - the kind of CO2 savings we as a company can be proud of. To add some context, if a customer chose to drive a Taurus SHO instead of that BMW 550i or similar V8 15,000 miles per year, that 30-gram difference in CO2 per mile could eliminate almost 1,000 pounds of C02 annually. Being able to deliver a product that has a meaningful response to lowering emissions is really exciting.

I imagine some researchers who invest the better part of their career to motivate a technology to fruition might lose some patience over time. I’ve been fortunate to see EcoBoost rapidly transform from a research project into a mainstream technology that Ford is now proudly offering across its product line, all in less than a decade. I’ve enjoyed the innovation and implementation process, and in this case, the rapid return on the research investment.

Image credit: napolifd, a creative commons via flickr

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