I disagree again that the market is dictating this. Ford found a way to make the same power and get better economy, but they are making the shift because it will be more profitable. Likely this will share lots of parts with the rest of the ecoboost engine series, which brings prices down on everything.

 

Part of a free market is competition. What you just described is the free market working. They can bring a car to the market with existing technology faster and cheaper then the competition. You can bet your butt Ford is going to advertise the hell out the gas mileage of this car against the competition. They ate going to sell a ton of these cars.

 

CRX was a 2-seater.

 

Just out of curiosity, I checked your numbers....In 2010, we used 378 million gals per day, which comes out to ~138 billion gallons per year.

I do agree whole-heartedly that oil is a HUGE national security issue...our (and the world's) entire economy is based on it, the price is EXTREMELY volatile (for whatever reason), and the currently level of supply is not assured (our military's primary focus area has been the Middle East for decades now...and it isn't because we are in love with the people of the area....). We would do well to wean ourselves off this black gold....but anyway...

We are indeed still by far the world's #1 consumer of oil - more than twice that of China, which is #2. Some other tidbits...

The U.S. and Canada are about equal in oil usage per capita, and far above most other countries. Of major countries, Saudi Arabia has the highest per capita usage, the Netherlands has a higher per capita usage than either the U.S. or Canda, and Belgium has about the same. Most Western European countries use ~1/2 to ~2/3rds of what we do, per capita.

Yes, I'm bored.

Sources: [url=http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_home#tab2]U.S Energy Information Association

www.google/publicdata

And the handy-dandy windows calculator....

 

I wish they'd follow that philosophy with the 3.0 diesel ranger...

 

There is no free market when it comes to energy or automobiles. Everything is manipulated by some government or corporation in the world. Most oil companies in the world are government owned, all industrial countries have either MPG requirements, engine displacement requirements, or both. Most industrial nations use tax to keep consumption low enough so that it isn't a huge national security issue. The only countries that don't need such requirements are ones that export large amounts of oil. Most of those nations are either in a production decline or have growing domestic consumption and will no longer be oil exporters in a decade or two. Indonesia left OPEC in 2008 because they could no longer export oil. Mexico is our #2-3 supplier, by the end of the 2010's they will become an importer nation just like us. The world is slowly running out of countries that are able/willing to export oil.

 

Maybe we should start building a better railroad transportation network.

 

We never should have dismantled our current system.

 

Or at least electrify what we got. That is proven tech that is used all around the world. It would save a lot of diesel.

 

You are correct.

 

(back to the car/engine in the OP).

I've thought about putting a turbo-charged large displacement motorcycle engine (1000cc) into a small, lightweight car. Who better than someone like Honda to develop this? They already have all the pieces. I'm sure the engine would need some changes to bring the power band down a bit in RPM and to handle the heavier loading on the bottom end, but it all seems doable (to me )

 

Except for very specific corridors, passenger rail in the U.S. is a loser. It's about the last thing we should be pumping billions of dollars we don't have into.

 

I'd like to hear more about why this is so.

Wouldn't a turboed bike motor be liek that Hayabusa powered Smart fortwo passion?

 

I'm excited about this. I think they could even put this in the Focus, as the Focus and the Fiesta get the same gas mileage on the highway (40).

This reminds me of the video from the onion:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...NxPCZKyizi2ESg

 

In short, ridership isn't near strong enough to demand large scale rail improvements. Several factors contribute to that. Then you have the massive subsidies and expenses with maintaining track, crossings, trains themselves, etc. Wouldn't want to go in-depth about it in this forum since it doesn't relate to future vehicles. But they are largely boondoggle projects.

I'm interested to see how this three cylinder actually drives. I almost wonder when or if we get to a point where motors like this are counterproductive in that customers see them as being too cheap. I can't imagine a three banger not having a hurdle or two to overcome in the minds of some people in the US.