Cool.


http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21805

 

Wow. I bet this car will get 50+ mpg highway. Would that make it the most highway fuel efficient large scale production car currently sold in the US? (EVs aside)

 

While cool I do believe BMW is making a similar i3 di turbo engine that will beat it to market so te Ford exec saying there is nothing similar might be stretching the truth.

 

See the free market is working. We dont need the gov to add taxes, raise cafe numbers or any other bs. People want cars that get good mileage and the industry is doing it.

 

this will be my next car!

the article doesn't say when the engine arrives though. i'm guessing a 2013 model year release?

 

The Fiesta is a "sub-compact" ?

And I've been drooling over a tiny turbo 3cyl since high school. If I had gone to school for engineering I would probably be upset I wasn't on the team making it.

 

I want to know how much get up and go it has. If its as good as those 50mpg CRX's back in the late 80's, then it's a damn good car. Then again, those CRX's weighed only 1,800lbs, a number we will probably never see again on a production 4-seater.

 

I can't remember the source, but somewhere I thought I read they were expecting a 15% improvement in fuel efficiency. That would put the Fiesta at 35 city and 46 hwy.

1.6L Ecoboost is supposed to be coming for the Focus, Fusion, and next Escape.

 

Yup. The Focus is a compact.

You know what I find strange? I think that the styling of the Mazda 2 actually makes it look a lot smaller than the Fiesta, even though it isn't.

 

This is NOT the free market working.

Keep in mind it takes years to design a new car. Looking at the price of fuel today and seeing anything that is currently nearing production and thinking it's the free market isn't realistic.

Almost 3 years ago, the Bush administration set up new CAFE standards going up to 2020. With that mandate, the automakers set to work making powerplants and vehicles to reach that goal. Now that effort is coming to fruitation, just as gas is reaching $4.50 a gallon.

Also, YES!!!! we do need some type of regulation on the amount of gas we use. It really irritates me when someone parrots a point or a ideal that simply ignores reality. Here's the reality.

1. Even though the United States of America is one of the planet's biggest oil producers (we once were a top exporter of oil.... it was our embargo against Japan that helped cause them to attack Pearl Harbor), we outstripped that useage to the point where if today, we took over the countries of the top 3 producers of oil, we still wouldn't have enough to fit demand.

2. In October 1973, OPEC shut off our oil because of our support to Isreal their '73 war. It wrecked our economy and took years to recover. We are more than twice as venerable today as we were back then to an organized effort to hit our economy.

3. Right now, that $4.50 per gallon of gas we're paying is going to record oil company profits as well as the countries that are exporting oil. That includes Iran, Yemen, and other countries that don't particularly like us. We've made Saudi Arabia rich. Yet, we havent raise our own gas taxes in 20 years. With inflation that's equals at least a 50% drop. Nothing more than a $1 increase in gas taxes would do far more to our deficit than any extreme cuts would ever accomplish.... painlessly. Best part: instead of giving the money to countries that don't like us or lining the pockets of oil executies and stockholders, it would be going towards the debt.

4. People don't give a rats a** about good mileage unless it affects their pocket books. Time and again, when fuel pockets spike, economy cars sell. When prices go back down, people go back to buying the biggest gas sucking thing they can afford. That plays havoc to our economy (trade deficits) as well as to automakers product planning (automakers have been stuck giving away fuel efficient cars during valleys in gas prices because nobody's buying them!)

5. Finally, we're going to have to very soon have a fully industrialized China and India that will need far more oil than they are using today buying up far more oil on the market.... driving up prices permanently. The US has about 300 million people. There is 1 [b]BILLION[/i] people in India alone, and at least another 3 billion people in China. Even if you are a poor math student, you can clearly understand that we're going to easily be muscled out of the energy market unless we curb our demand to the point where we can meet our energy needs with notheing more than North American production (Canada and Mexico are our biggest suppliesr, but we still get huge amounts from other sources in South America and the Middle East).

The fact is simply this, oil has become the achilles heel of the United States.

Forget global warming or the enviromentalists. IMO, their science doesn't support their conclusions (the earth has gone through warming periods well before industrialization or even man, and todays cars don't even put out enough pollution to kill yourself in a closed garage).

It's not a political issue, it's not a enviromental issue, it's not a right versus left issue. It's a National Security issue.

Just think, the increase in fuel prices alone over the past 3 years would be not only enough to eliminate the debt we've ran up the past few years, if it were taxed to the level we're paying now, the debt would be retired in short order, we'd be able to buy back all the bonds we sold to China to finance out debt.

You can't really explain the economic advantages of greatly reduced oil consumption to the average American without their mind wondering or eyes glazing over from disintrest. A stronger dollar & a better economy don't resonate with people when compared to the notion of buying whatever they want whenever they want it. Then blaming someone else (ie: China) when they take advantage of everything, and our house of cards fall down.

Sorry about the rant, but this subject is something I am extremely passionate about. We've become a nation that wants it all, but doesn't want to pay for it or do an ounce of sacrifice for the common good.

That's a very long way from Kennedy's "ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country?"

Politicians simply are catering to the people who elected them.

That's why we have CAFE. The responsibility is thrown on someone other than us, because we're too busy saying "no taxes or regulation", and polititians know their constituents will throw them out for anything that doesn't benefit them.

CAFE could be completely avoided with barely more than a $2 increase in the gasoline (not diesel or jet fuel) tax. The public has already made clear twice this decade that $4 is the limit to what they'll pay for gas before making changes.

The price for oil would plunge (remember, we're the biggest consumer by a long shot), gas would drop back to no more than $4 per gallon, the money would be kept here in the country instead of making the Saudi family rich and giving Venezuela president massive amount of income while demeaning the US, both from YOUR pocketbook!!!

There are some things the "Free Market" is not the answer. All politics aside, until we as a group make the connections that we are too self adsorbed to care about, the only thing the Feds can do are things like CAFE.... a half a**ed attempt to do what we as the people of the United States should be doing on our own.

*** ok....enough ranting for today. ***

 

Wrong. In fact, ridiculously wrong. I believe we currently use around 140-150 billion gallons of gasoline per year. An increase of $150B in taxes does nothing substantial to our debt. We take in about a trillion a year in income taxes, to put this in perspective, and still have a $14T+ deficit. Your notion that all of our disgustingly excessive spending problems could be solved by simply using less fuel and taxing it more is silly. No offense. I submit that the current price of oil has little to do with our national debt at all, but that's another debate for another type of forum.

Painlessly. Right. If you believe $4/gallon gas has people freaking out, show them $5/gallon. People won't get behind increased gas taxes, but they will get behind increased efficiency. Which is why we're getting go-cart motors. Whether you call it government intervention or I call it the free market = high gas prices = demand for efficient cars, it's all the same and is a necessary situation.

 

Yes it is the free market working. As a mattet of fact I cant think of a better example of the free market working. Price of gas goes up, people demand cars with good fuel economy. Government had nothing to do with it. It was all done in the free market. People still remember the first time gas shot up to over $4.00 and are shopping cars based on that. Because of the free market and new technoligies coming up in the next 10 years, we will never see gas get above $6.00 a gallon, unless the gov decides to tax us to death or a huge war.
Do you realize we get most of our oil from North America and only 25% of our oil comes from middle east or African countries. So I dont buy all that national security bs.
Gas mileage is what is selling cars and the manufacturers are doing everything they can do deliver them. i rather let the free market do its thing, that way the consumer gets what it wants, not what an over reaching gov wants.

 

Everyone saying the is free maret working is forgeting that this engine was primarily designed for Europe, where gas I much more expensive. Ford is simply following its One Ford philosophy where cars and engines are used in all markets.

 

And Ford is doing that because the free market in this country wants it. Fuel economy is the number one on the consumers list when buying a new car. Manufacturers know this and will respond with cars that get fuel economy.
Dont you guys like your freedom to choose for yourself?

 

I wonder how they ended up with a 3-cylinder design? On a small displacement engine, you could easily make it with just two cylinders, and seems like you'd save quite a bit of expense by having one less piston, rod, set of rings, valves, etc, etc.