MM2004
10-05-2011, 08:59 AM
Discuss...
V-6 out, four cylinders in as SUV targets fuel savings, but will it register with customers?
Americans don't want tiny, fuel-sipping cars, despite what politicians, marketing geniuses and everyone in California says.
Americans want big, fuel-sipping SUVs.
Ford Motor Co. announced Tuesday that it will be getting closer to creating just that when it rolls out the all-new Ford Escape at the Los Angeles auto show in November.
To demonstrate just how much Ford is banking on fuel-efficient SUVs, for the first time in America Ford will build a compact SUV with no V-6 model. In the truck world, this is almost sacrilege.
The next Escape will come with an improved 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, a 2-liter turbocharged direct injection four-cylinder engine or a 1.6-liter turbocharged direct injection four banger, said Greg Johnson, Ford's North American power pack integration manger.
Three 4s always beats a pair of 6s. The last two engines carry Ford's EcoBoost moniker — the tiny but powerful engines that can do the work of their bigger brothers.
"By 2013, we'll have EcoBoost offerings for 90 percent of our vehicles," said Derrick Kuzak, Ford vice president and head of global product development, as he stood in front of an all new C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, which promises a 500-mile range between electric and traditional gas drivetrains.
On Tuesday, Ford laid out some of its plans for creating a more fuel-efficient fleet — something more people want and the government has demanded with onerous changes to corporate average fuel economy rules.
But there's a fine line between satisfying the government and consumers, though both remain clueless about how cars and trucks actually work. Over the past few months, Ford did some extensive surveying of consumers and learned that 61 percent are interested in buying a hybrid or electric vehicle (though only 4 percent actually do buy them).
Worse, nearly half don't know the difference between a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid and an electric vehicle. If knowledge is power, many consumers are pushing about 3 pound-feet of torque.
So they may not understand that the new Escape will lose its hybrid badge when it arrives. (That hybrid is no longer needed because the C-Max and Escape 1.6 will get better highway mileage than the hybrid did.)
More importantly, the Escape follows the newfound trend of vehicles dropping bigger engines and being designed from the ground up for smaller engines. Kuzak hinted as much, saying that Ford is focusing more energy on reducing the weight of its vehicles, which ultimately translates into better fuel economy.
The same thing is happening at brands like Hyundai, Buick, Kia, Chevrolet and many more. Smaller means big mileage numbers. Even Ford's luxury brand, Lincoln, no longer builds a car with a V-8 now that the Town Car has gone away.
With as much as people talk about hybrids and electric cars, you'd think everyone drove one. But in September, more people bought trucks than cars — something few people ever say out loud. The reason: We love them.
Furthermore, Ford's survey pointed out that the gasoline price at which people would seriously consider buying a hybrid is $5 a gallon, and gas needs to reach $6 a gallon before they will seriously consider an electric vehicle.
Even then, no one wants to give up space. We're averse to most things small when it comes to vehicles. Small will never be big. Ford is just figuring out how to make big more efficient.
Source: (c) 2011 Detroit News. Provided by Proquest Information and Learning. All rights reserved. A service of YellowBrix, Inc
V-6 out, four cylinders in as SUV targets fuel savings, but will it register with customers?
Americans don't want tiny, fuel-sipping cars, despite what politicians, marketing geniuses and everyone in California says.
Americans want big, fuel-sipping SUVs.
Ford Motor Co. announced Tuesday that it will be getting closer to creating just that when it rolls out the all-new Ford Escape at the Los Angeles auto show in November.
To demonstrate just how much Ford is banking on fuel-efficient SUVs, for the first time in America Ford will build a compact SUV with no V-6 model. In the truck world, this is almost sacrilege.
The next Escape will come with an improved 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, a 2-liter turbocharged direct injection four-cylinder engine or a 1.6-liter turbocharged direct injection four banger, said Greg Johnson, Ford's North American power pack integration manger.
Three 4s always beats a pair of 6s. The last two engines carry Ford's EcoBoost moniker — the tiny but powerful engines that can do the work of their bigger brothers.
"By 2013, we'll have EcoBoost offerings for 90 percent of our vehicles," said Derrick Kuzak, Ford vice president and head of global product development, as he stood in front of an all new C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, which promises a 500-mile range between electric and traditional gas drivetrains.
On Tuesday, Ford laid out some of its plans for creating a more fuel-efficient fleet — something more people want and the government has demanded with onerous changes to corporate average fuel economy rules.
But there's a fine line between satisfying the government and consumers, though both remain clueless about how cars and trucks actually work. Over the past few months, Ford did some extensive surveying of consumers and learned that 61 percent are interested in buying a hybrid or electric vehicle (though only 4 percent actually do buy them).
Worse, nearly half don't know the difference between a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid and an electric vehicle. If knowledge is power, many consumers are pushing about 3 pound-feet of torque.
So they may not understand that the new Escape will lose its hybrid badge when it arrives. (That hybrid is no longer needed because the C-Max and Escape 1.6 will get better highway mileage than the hybrid did.)
More importantly, the Escape follows the newfound trend of vehicles dropping bigger engines and being designed from the ground up for smaller engines. Kuzak hinted as much, saying that Ford is focusing more energy on reducing the weight of its vehicles, which ultimately translates into better fuel economy.
The same thing is happening at brands like Hyundai, Buick, Kia, Chevrolet and many more. Smaller means big mileage numbers. Even Ford's luxury brand, Lincoln, no longer builds a car with a V-8 now that the Town Car has gone away.
With as much as people talk about hybrids and electric cars, you'd think everyone drove one. But in September, more people bought trucks than cars — something few people ever say out loud. The reason: We love them.
Furthermore, Ford's survey pointed out that the gasoline price at which people would seriously consider buying a hybrid is $5 a gallon, and gas needs to reach $6 a gallon before they will seriously consider an electric vehicle.
Even then, no one wants to give up space. We're averse to most things small when it comes to vehicles. Small will never be big. Ford is just figuring out how to make big more efficient.
Source: (c) 2011 Detroit News. Provided by Proquest Information and Learning. All rights reserved. A service of YellowBrix, Inc