Ford C-Max to Spawn a Prius-Fighting Family

Not sure what you saying about the Taurus and TC there.
The 3.5 ecoboost Taurus is only available with all wheel drive. I mentioned it because AWD pulls down fuel economy, and makes it difficult to judge if the engine is actually inefficient.

Do you have a source on the specifics of how the ecoboost operates? I'm not having much luck, and want to understand the why.

Does any manufacturer have a production DI engine with a 13:1 compression ratio? Ford's DI are 12:1 and Hyundai are 11.3:1.

Aren't non-DI turbo engines normally lower compression? I'm guessing the CR number only accounts for cylinder volume, and doesn't factor in the increased density of air entering with a turbo or supercharger.

 

Just throwing in, fords ecoboost engines are efficient for their horsepower. There is a big difference in how they are tuned and the 2.0 ecoboost comes in variants between 200hp tuned for economy to 300hp tuned for performance. When you get to high horsepower on the turbos they start using lots of gas since they use rich mixtures not to overheat. The 1.6L ecoboost is going to get you better economy than the 2.5L duratec on the c-max, but I don't know which would be better in the hybrid.

Mazda and Ford share engines and mazda is coming out with a skyativ with compression of 14:1 on premium gas, ford will use a varient that gets 13:1 on regular gas. The atkinson cycle 2.5L duratec has an expansion ratio of 12.3:1 so standard is less, and ecoboost is 10:1.

The compression ratio is simple measurement. On a turbo there will be variable boost. There is leakage and this is higher at lower rpm, so compression is alwasys lower than stated at lower rpm on a normally aspirated engine.

 

turbos and GDI are expensive technologies to add to already expensive hybrids.

 

One more news outlet that got the story wrong.

Ford introduced C-Max in Jan (Detroit auto show). The main story was - they were scrapping the ICE only C-Max 7 seater van. But that bit is hidden nicely in the press release.

C-Max Energi: Ford Scraps C-Max ICE, Promotes Energi, C-Max Hybrid

With a power split architecture similar to Prius - C-Max hybrid will compete directly with Prius v. Energi will compete with Volt & Plugin Prius. Then they have Focus EV against Leaf ...

 

The top end HP of the V6 EcoBoost, if applied SOLELY to the front wheels, would result in INSTANT TC activation. Moving a significant level of that HP to the rear helps to alleviate instances of front wheelspin when....

The "effective" CR of the Ecoboost engine might well rise to 15-16:1 due to pre-compression and inter-cooling of the incoming air charge.

 

It think the reason why Ford dropped the seven-seat C-Max wagon is the fact they were able to put that same seating configuration (foldable seat second row, occasional seating third row) of the Grand C-Max into the upcoming next-generation Escape small SUV. That would make the Grand C-Max superfluous for the North American market.

If I remember correctly, isn't Ford's hybrid drivetrain technology very similar to what Toyota developed for the Prius? If that's the case, the C-Max Hybrid and Energi PHEV could be serious competitors against the Prius--and the C-Max wouln't remind people of a "science experiment" car that the Prius looks like now.

 

Have you seen pictures of the C-Max? It does resemble the Prius shape like most hybrids do. Put a Nascar-style template across the top and they are similar enough to qualify for the "science experiment look".

 

they already said reason was pricing - it would start at 26k for petrol and thats way to expensive compared to bigger mpvs in usa on sale today.

 

That C-max is the grand I believe, the new one looks like a giant Fiesta:

 

I'm looking forward to more options in fuel efficient cars, though I'm not looking to replace my 2010 Prius anytime soon!