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Chrysler 3.0L EcoDiesel V6: Autoblog Technology of the Year finalist

Offering a diesel engine in an American pickup is anything but new - Ford, General Motors and Chrysler all offer excellent and almost impossibly powerful oil-burning engines in their various fullsize trucks. What is new and novel about the 3.0L EcoDiesel, though, is its size, and the variety of vehicles that use it. It's the smallest engine, as far as displacement is concerned, currently offered in a large truck in the US, and, for 2014 and 2015, it is available in the Ram 1500 and the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Though it may be small, it's got muscle. While 240 horsepower isn't particularly impressive these days, the engine's 420 pound-feet of torque more than makes up for that. The torque rating is even greater force than even the big 5.7-liter Hemi can muster. Chrysler's well-regarded eight-speed automatic transmission makes the most of all that bull-headed pulling power in both the Ram and Grand Cherokee. Chrysler claims the Ram EcoDiesel 1500 can tow as much as 9,200 pounds when properly equipped, which makes it "90-percent of the Hemi with a night and day difference in fuel economy."
Make no mistake; it's that promise of a sizable fuel economy improvement that many long-haul truckers will be most interested in. In the Ram 1500 that we tested for our Tech of the Year competition, the diesel engine costs $2,850 more than the gas-fed V8, and Ram estimates that EcoDiesel buyers will pay off their investment when compared to the Hemi engine in less than three years, which is considerably less time than the 4.5 or so years the average buyer will keep his or her fullsize pickup. The more you drive, the more you'll save, and the math proves equally as effective in the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Top torque-to-weight ratios under $100k, $50k and $25k

Horsepower may steal a lot of headlines, but the always-more-complex torque figure is often a critical one for both the workingman and the motoring playboy. The measure of rotational force represents the twist that can liquefy one's tires or haul one's horse trailer. Good stuff.
It follows then, that as with the horsepower-to-weight list that we assembled for you a few months ago, a list of cars that offer the most pound-feet with the fewest pounds to carry, is an interesting one to break down. Sure, there's a big difference in how the torque is applied from a turbocharged six-cylinder in a Swedish luxury sedan and a massive heavy-duty truck's turbo-diesel. But being the car/stat geeks that we are, we think it's kinda neat that those two vehicles rank near each other where torque and weight intersect.
As with the horsepower list, we've given you figures as pounds per every one pound-foot. Again broken down into broad price categories, we've got a mixed bag of 2014 and 2015 models here, too. Every effort has been made to select the most up-to-date prices and specs, and we've also to omitted some '14 cars that won't be re-upped after the ongoing yearly changeover.

2015 Ram Promaster City is ready to take a load off [w/videos]

There are a few segments of the auto industry that are growing rapidly. Weirdly, though, one of the most notable is the compact cargo van market. What use to be the sole terrain of the Ford Transit Connect and the occasional Dodge Grand Caravan-based Ram C/V Tradesman is becoming a notable battleground. Nissan has dove headfirst into the market with its NV200, which will also be sold as a Chevrolet City Express and Ford recently released a heavily redesigned, more user friendly Transit Connect. Now, Ram is releasing its entry into the compact cargo segment.
Like the Transit Connect and NV, the all-new Ram ProMaster City is billed as a diet version of the full-sized workhorse van, the ProMaster. Also like its big brother, the 2015 ProMaster City is based off a commercial offering from Fiat Professional, the Doblò (the full-size ProMaster is based on the Fiat Ducato).
But while the ProMaster gets a pair of six-cylinder engines and a wide array of wheelbase and roof heights, the ProMaster City is simpler. The sole engine choice is the familiar 2.4-liter, Tigershark four-cylinder that's found in the vehicles Fiat Chrysler's compact-wide platform, such as the Chrysler 200, Dodge Dart and Jeep Cherokee. Power output sits at 178 horsepower and 174 pound-feet of torque. According to Ram, the ProMaster City boasts class-leading output and can sprint to 60 in 9.8 seconds. Perhaps knowing that's a ridiculous stat in a cargo van, Ram also cites a more useful 3.7-second run from zero to 30 miles per hour. The Tigershark sends its power through a nine-speed automatic transmission to the front wheels.