Although both electric and hybrid cars are both very popular, good for the environment, and much more healthy on the wallet to run than traditionally fuelled cars they are not the be all and end all when it comes to efficiency. Rather than concentrate solely on these areas, Ford has decided to go down a slightly different road with increasing their use of turbochargers.
Just recently, Ford announced that they have now sold over 1 million of their pickup trucks that have been fitted with turbocharged EcoBoost engines. Found in the F-150, these engines are equipped with just six cylinders opposed to eight which certainly helps in lowering the fuel consumption and have been deemed as the most popular selling vehicle in the USA.
Turbochargers work by using the exhaust gas to drive a turbine that spins the air compressor and pushes extra air into the cylinder. In doing this, more fuel can burn quickly and more efficiently. Because of this reason, they are becoming more and more popular in the market, and soon it may be a race between electric/hybrid cars and turbochargers as the next big thing in the automotive industry.
In the past six years, turbocharged cars have hit the market full steam. With only 8% of vehicles in 2010 being fitted with a turbocharger, that figure has now reached more than 20% and is still expected to climb. Experts say that by 2020, we could be looking at as many as 38% of vehicles on the road to be turbocharged. It’s not surprising really when the figures show that collectively, F-150 owners will collectively, over the course of just one year, save around $255 million in fuel costs.
Saving money is always a good thing, and saving the environment is just as important. Turbocharged engines may not be quite as efficient as battery powered engines, but they are still efficient in their right, and with more and more people realize that we may see an increase of turbocharged vehicles on the road sooner than first thought.
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