Ford dusts off old ideas, hopes to get 2011 Explorer to 30 mpg.
 

I found an interesting article about Ford engineers taking a second look at old ideas to boost fuel efficiency. Primarily weight reduction, direct injection, and turbocharging a smaller engine to obtain the same horsepower.

They forgot about aerodynamics.

again.

This article brought to you by the Save The Trucks! foundation.

Ha ha! Yeah, but is it really a truck if it's on a Taurus platform??? :p

So, it's a unibody minivan styled like an Explorer so people will actually buy it. It's a mild hybrid, turbo four cylinder that gets 30mpg. That's great news! The body-on-frame Explorer is dead.

If only the Fiesta was this big of an improvement over its predecessor.

Realistically DI and throttleless engines are as FE as diesels.

If they jumped those two fences at the same time they'd pop some serious FE gains.

If they do that and run it lean all the time like diesels and use the turbo to create the artificially high AFR it will get closer to diesels. Instead they will use it to maintain HP with lower engine weight. Just give it less go, no throttle body, DI and a turbo to jack AFR.