Ford is celebrating the production of its two millionth EcoBoost engine with plans to expand its use into more vehicles and develop more variations of the engine. The turbocharged gasoline engine is capable of delivering about 20% better fuel economy than larger-displacement gasoline engines.
It’s vital for manufacturers to continue pursuing technologies like EcoBoost if they hope to meet the federally mandated corporate average fuel economy of 54.5 MPG set to take affect in 2025. This mandate is forcing manufacturers to upgrade engines much more quickly than in the past.
Ford currently has five EcoBoost engines in its line-up, not all of which are available in the United States. The largest engine is the 3.5-liter V6 followed by 2.0-liter and 1.6-liter four-cylinder versions for smaller vehicles.
Europe will be getting a 1.0-liter 3-cylinder in the 2014 Fiesta this Fall and there’s a 1.5-liter on sale in China. That last one will also be coming to the United States in the Fusion and Europe in the Mondeo.
Despite the gas savings of the EcoBoost, the engine itself is more expensive so it was a bit of a hard sell, especially with truck owners. They introduced the EcoBoost V6 in the F-150 in February of 2011 and it’s now found in about 42% of the new trucks that they sell.
It’s a great alternative to diesel since the payback period is about four times faster. There’s also not the problem of using more expensive diesel fuel which runs about 10% higher at the pump than gasoline.
Ford is increasing its output of EcoBoost engines to about 100,000 a month from just 70,000 back in April of this year. They’ve added the 1.0-liter to production at their Cologne, Germany plant and made a $200 million investment to add production of the 2.0-liter in Cleveland.
If they stay on track with projections, Ford will produce 1.2 million EcoBoost engines by the end of the year.
Nicole Wakelin fell in love with cars as a teenager when she got to go for a ride in a Ferrari. It was red and it was fast and that was all that mattered. Game over. She considers things a bit more carefully now, but still has a weakness for fast, beautiful cars. Nicole also writes for NerdApproved and GeekMom.
