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Ward's calls out Ford's EcoBoost engines for their crummy fuel economy

With a name like EcoBoost, one might expect Ford's line of turbocharged engines to be somewhat, um, economical. In other words, replacing displacement with a turbocharger is supposed to deliver better fuel economy. Based on the experience time and time again of multiple Autoblog editors, your author included, this is simply not the case. Now, Ward's is calling out the cruddy efficiency numbers of Ford's EcoBoost line of engines. The column dresses down not just the new 2.7-liter V6 of the 2015 F-150, but also the 2.3-liter of the Mustang, the 1.5-liter from the Fusion and the 3.2-liter PowerStroke diesel found in the Transit, while also explaining why just one Ford engine was named to Ward's 10 Best Engines list. In its testing of all four engines, Ward's editors never came even remotely close to matching the 2.7's claimed 26 miles per gallon (for two-wheel-drive models), with the truck's computer indicating between 17.6 and 19 mpg over a 250-odd-mile run. Calculating the fuel economy manually revealed an even more depressing 15.6 miles per gallon. Criticisms with the 2.3-liter four-cylinder focused on its strange soundtrack, although it was business as usual with the 1.5-liter and 3.2 diesel, with Ward's criticizing the fuel economy of both engines. The 1.5, which Ward's claims is sold as a hybrid alternative, failed to get over 30 miles per gallon, while the five-cylinder turbodiesel's figures couldn't stand up against FCA's 3.0-liter EcoDiesel. The entire column really is worth a read, especially if you were disappointed in Ward's decision to only salute Ford's three-cylinder EcoBoost while shunning the rest of the company's new turbocharged mills.

'Car Wars' says Ford, Honda to pick up share, Fiat-Chrysler ambitions downplayed

Don't look for a tremendous shifts in automotive market share over the next three years because it might not be coming. That's at least according to the annual Car Wars report by John Murphy, from Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research.
In the report's analysis of automakers' market share from 2013 to 2017, it predicts only small changes among the major companies. Ford and Honda see the biggest positive effect with an estimated 0.5 percent increase in their shares over the next three years; to 16.2 percent and 10.3 percent respectively. On the flip side, European automakers and Nissan are expected to lose 0.2 percent each to fall to 8.3 percent and 7.8 percent each respectively. The rest of the industry is predicted to hold steady as it is now.
The biggest loser in that prediction might be Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles. The report certainly throws a wet blanket on its plan for significant gains in market share. Murphy told The Detroit News that the company's goal was "almost unattainable."

V6 engines will outpace V8s for the 2015 Ford F-150

How times have changed. Even five years ago, who would have thought the mighty V8 would be just another engine choice for buyers of the 2015 Ford F-150?
Ford is projecting about 28 percent of the next-generation trucks will have the 5.0-liter V8. That's nothing to sneeze at, but consider this: Ford figures its two EcoBoost truck engines - the new 2.7-liter V6 and the existing 3.5-liter V6 - will also each account for about 28 percent of the F-150's sales (56 percent total). That leaves only 15 percent of the pie for the 3.5-liter (non-EcoBoost) V6. The new F-150 goes on sale late this year.
Ford figures its two EcoBoost truck engines will each account for about 28 percent of the F-150's sales.