So long V8? Don’t look now but the US auto market is changing
According to Edmonds Just like we suspected, the auto market is changing. Call it environmental awareness, call it regulatory pressure, call it old-fashioned economics. But by and large, call it inevitable: that most American of inventions – the V8 – is quickly being supplanted by smaller, more peppery engines as the auto industry marches to the latest beat of “downsizing.”
Ford announced today that it will produce three new engines using its Ecoboost concept of combining direct fuel injection with turbocharging and variable camshaft timing to boost the specific output of smaller-displacement engines. Ecoboost engines will be deployed for two vehicles that long represented the heart of the V8 market: the F-150 pickup and the 2011 Explorer. The third new Ecoboost engine variant is a 1.6-liter 4-cylinder for the European C-Max mini-minivan. Based on the new Focus compact-car platform, the C-Max is coming to the U.S. next year as the Grand C-Max.
V8′s-Passe ? Makes and models recently dropping V8 power are beginning to stack up. An Explorer without a V8 is symbolic, for sure, but the flagship of Ford’s Lincoln brand, the MKS, doesn’t offer a V8: its top-of-the-heap engine is the 3.5-liter Ecoboost V6.
Rival General Motors Co. two years ago shut down development of a new generation, overhead-cam V8 engine family for passenger cars. The so-called “Ultra” V8, or UV8, was earmarked as a replacement for GM’s aged Northstar V8, but GM said in early 2008 regulatory and environmental trends – not to mention shifting consumer tastes – were mitigating the need for V8s. The company’s Cadillac division noted at the time installation rates for V8s in Cadillac’s STS sedan and SRX crossover were running just 15 percent.
Volkswagen of America Inc. last year quietly dropped the 4.2-liter V8 offered for the 2010 Touareg crossover. Replacing that muscle was a V-6 diesel that generates more torque than the V8.
Other German makers are deemphasizing V8 prestige in the U.S. market: Volkswagen’s Audi AG is substituting a new, supercharged 3.2-liter V6 for the former 4.2-liter V8 in many of its new high-performance “S” models. BMW AG is taking a similar tack with its “M” performance models, which reputedly will use forced-induction downsized engines to replace the normally aspirated V8 and V10 currently used in various M models.
