One-Third Of 2011 Ford F-150 Pickups Sold With EcoBoost V-6
This story originally appeared at Green Car Reports
MPGs matter, it turns out, even to pickup buyers. Or, perhaps especially to pickup truck buyers.
Just four months after Ford launched a version of its top-selling 2011 F-150 pickup truck, the company reports that fully 35 percent of that model’s sales are fitted with the more fuel-efficient 3.7-liter EcoBoost V-6 engine.
“The No. 1 unmet need for full-size pickup truck owners has been fuel economy,” said Doug Scott, marketing manager for the Ford Truck Group. He said the 2011 Ford F-150 now has “best-in-class fuel economy, best-in-class capability and power, and more powertrain choices.”
Ford has vowed that it will deliver best-in-class fuel economy in all of its new products.
The
version of the EcoBoost engine used in the Ford F-150 pickup raises the
truck’s fuel efficiency to 17 mpg city, 23 mpg highway, for a combined
rating of 19 mpg.
That’s 12 percent better than the most
economical V-8 offering, the 5.0-liter engine, which the EPA rates at 15
mpg city and 21 mpg highway, and 17 mpg combined.
A rise from 17
to 19 mpg may not sound very impressive. But in fact, it saves almost
two-thirds of a gallon of gasoline every 100 miles, the same amount as
raising the gas mileage of a smaller car all the way from 38 to 50 mpg.
That’s because miles-per-gallon isn’t a linear scale, and actually confuses a majority of car buyers. But we’ll leave that discussion for another time.
Many pickup trucks
get driven more miles each year than passenger cars, and for those
trucks, the fuel savings and reduction in tailpipe emissions are even
higher.
Ford’s
line of EcoBoost engines uses gasoline direct injection and
turbocharging to extract more power from a smaller displacement. The
company says its 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 (fitted to the Ford Taurus SHO and Flex models, and the Lincoln MKS and MKZ) offers the performance of a V-8 with fuel efficiency up to 20 percent better.
The company’s EcoBoost lineup will expand over the next few years. It will launch a 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine in its Ford Edge
and Lincoln MKX models, though release dates have not yet been set. And
there are even smaller EcoBoost fours to come, though they will be used
first for models sold in Europe.
[Ford]
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