Ford has now introduced an entire line of I-4, V6, and V8 all alloy, DOHC, dual VVT engines. These are nice engines, fully state-of-the-art, but still do not offer VVL, throttle-free operation.

IOW, they still need further updates before they possess the pre-requisites to operate with the mileage benefits equivalent to diesel, of HCCI operation.

Why? because they have hundreds of gray haired ME's that don't have a clue about EV's.
They are still a ICE vehicle company. Can't really blame them, since Henry Sr. blazed that trail.

People buy them because they are heavily advertised. Just watch the sales techniques used during any football game to draw out the bubba-wannabe...

400 pounds from the engine, 300 pounds from the transmission leaves a lot of room for motors, controllers and batteries with a better weight distribution.

There is a company in southern California that takes new Mustangs and converts them to EV with better performance. They are not big sellers and cost $100,000 each, but some people have money to buy one.

What a wonderful but such non efficient engine. Double VVT is really the only technology which is supposed to impove the engine and save fuel ?
It will still be throttling most of the time !
When will they understand that this cheap way of making engines is not viable anymore. We need downsizing, turbocharged/supercharged + direct injection -> clean scavenging possibilities...fully variable camshaft.
For instance a VW 1.4 tsi 180 HP is 128.5 HP/l, and has a amasing torque curve. This is a bunch of technologies that I would pay for.

This is good.
Ford needs to capitalize on these affordable, high profit vroom toys while there is still time, instead leaving this market to high dollar German and Asian sports cars.

If it were not for nostalgia, Ford might be dead now.

25/17 mpg (US) in a 400hp (SAE net) car is quite good.

400 hp to transport up to 4 or 5 people (but typically ONE) is way more than a little outrageous but they sell – and for the same reason that 2000 square feet per person homes sell – and for the same reason that private jets sell - so send some of your righteous rage toward those high oil consumers who try to force US made muscle cars off the market.

I hope this technology includes some early or late intake valve closing to reduce throttling losses; if not I wonder why.

I don’t know where HCCI stands – is it in any production engines yet?

If/when the CAFÉ standards force us to smaller cars, Ford will probably still have to rely heavily on their foreign divisions - built with foreign labor.

Ford is still a ICE vehicle company, as they should be.
EVs are not going to take over the market in the near future.
EV sales are stagnant at about 3% and those sales are not based on economics and would be lower if they were not heavily hyped and promoted by their makers and our rightful concern for oil imports.

Ford understands that this relatively economical way of making efficient engines is the best way to improve the bottom line – and the bottom line is, umm well, the bottom line.

Downsizing with forced induction is probably more costly, complex and expensive than their Ti-VVT and not as attractive in a muscle car - and it has always been the “promise of the future”.

If you want costly elegance, keep it simple, buy a Volt.

If you want a good, affordable, reliable, small car, buy Asian and send your dollars overseas, but don’t pretend Ford can compete easily in that market. By one estimate, the earlier-model Ford Focus lost as much as $1 billion a year (WSJ).

Does anyone believe they can just heavily advertise the Fiesta at halftime and rake in the dough? The world is not that simple.

And he was right.

Empty busses next to large vehicles with one person inside.

Air-conditioned stadiums.

Private jets with few people inside.

Huge houses and suburban sprawl.

But the perpetrators are the people - not the evil capitalists in business.

Please, Your rage and contempt for anyone who does not share your desires to ride a bicycle or drive a pregnant roller skate is showing.

There is a reasonable desire to replace petroleum as a fuel source, but it is no longer for any other reason than the artificial Oil 'Price' Crisis.

The excesses of the AGW theses was collapsing of its own weight, as new 21st Science results were coming in, even before the scandal of Climategate revealed the degrees of political hoaxing involved.

Exploitation of non-conventional oils sources, made feasible under the exorbitant price umbrella, reveals that these enormous reserves will supply the industrialized world for many centuries if needed. So petroleum supply is not a genuine issue, if it ever was.

The cartel of unsavory types, used Marxist philosophy to justify nationalizing their oil companies. These sovereigns then imposed truly monopolistic prices bearing absolutely no relation to the cost of production or profit.

When it comes to true avarice, only politicians are capable of acting with such malice and contempt for everyone, including their own citizens.

The response of petroleum consumers was to find acceptable substitutes. The process of finding adequate substitutes is well along for all other petroleum requirements, except Transport, even as it has taken 40 years to accomplish.

All other petroleum markets are stabilized, and actually declining, now. But even the last growing market, the Transport Sector now has the glimmers of valid substitutes in electrified vehicles of various types. We should welcome the coming of electric-assisted, and then more advanced gasoline-assisted electric vehicles, and even pure electric powered vehicles, as they will break the Cartel, finally and absolutely.

To the degree that efficiency improvements in any and all related technologies, reduce the use of petroleum, they all serve to bring that wanted day forward. So the Ford advances, don't merit the hatred manifest by the truly intolerant here. Many of you sound like the worst of a KKK racist bigot from the 1940s.

Ford's new line of all-alloy, DOHC, four valve, dual VVT, SPFI, I-4, V6, and small V8 ICE engines are a welcome technical advance. They are introduced, without the technologies that they will soon add, such as turbo charging and GDI and eventually HCCI operation.

But even the clean-sheet foundations make it clear that Ford has invested in developing truly advanced ICE families across the entire range of power that it is likely to ever need. Both Chrysler and too a large degree GM have done likewise, over the previous half decade. The domestic manufacturers now possess the most advanced, fuel efficient, toxic emissions free, ICE engines of any companies in the World.

They have all avoided the cul-de-sac of heavy and dirty diesel, and all seem bent on adopting HCCI technology that is much cleaner, and just as fuel efficient.

Unbeliveable but true.

With a bit more fine tuning Ford will get 500+ hp on every Mustang.

The neighbour youngter will want 600+ hp and may be 700 hp.....

“it is the capitalists that have the jets and build the air conditioned stadiums.”
I assume you mean those of us who invest in business and believe in an economic system based on private ownership.

The private jets are used by the politicians, rich entertainers and anyone that has enough $$$ to graduate from a Hummer to a jet - not "capitalists".

Air conditioned stadiums are built by various entertainment entrepreneurs supported by those who will pay heavily to sit and watch sports or concerts and support some of the strongest and most talented, or not, as well as those who buy jets – and those who buy drugs.

We call it freedom to do with our money as we want.

Fuel enrichment at high load, incidentally, is used for maximum power not to cool exhaust gases, that went out with air cooled P47 engines.

A strange response.

What I value are a firm grasp of reality and common sense.

Lack of both of these can result in irrational reactions to real problems.

Ten years ago, Honda made for the S2000 a 240 HP normally aspirated 2.0 liter, 4 cylinders: 120 HP / l. This is impressive.

Speaking of fuel enrichment:

Theoretically maximum power is obtained at stoichiometric ratio : equivalence ratio 1. However due to dissociation phenomena you can still increase the power by injecting more fuel. Then a big part of HC does not burn completely and cannot turn fully into CO2 due to the lack of O2 available (rich mixture). CO is thus created (exponentially) and combustion efficiency gets lower. The optimum for maximum power is around equivalence ratio 1.1.

Now it happens sometimes, that you need to really cool the exhaust gases as you are working at high load and that you are getting too close to you limited exhaust manifold temperature (around 930°C for gasoline, 830°C for diesel). So you inject even more gasoline and goes up to equivalence ratio 1.15, 1.2, even 1.25 just to use the latent heat of the fuel. The fuel does not burn in the cylinder, and do not increase the power anymore (it actually slightly decreases it).

Another example of this is used for cold start, when also you ll inject up to E.R 1.2 to improve combustion stability (like the choke button on carburetors). Diesel engine is far more stable in cold condition once started.

Some people are also looking at using other ways (like EGR) on gasoline to reduce exhaust gases temperature instead of using this strategy, which is a wonderful waste.