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Motrolix

Ford Begins Production Of 1.0-Liter EcoBoost-Powered Focus

The first Ford Focus cradling the 1.0 liter three-cylinder EcoBoost engine rolled off the assembly line this week in Saarlouis, Germany. Of particular significance is the fact that the vehicle is Ford’s most fuel-efficient gasoline-powered car… ever.

The Focus 1.0 EcoBoost offers a miserly 98 horsepower (100 PS) with an equally stingy class-leading fuel economy of 4.8l liters/100km (58.9 Imperial MPG/50 U.S. MPG) and minuscule CO2 emissions of 109g/km. The direct-injected engine is also available in a slightly more powerful 125 horsepower (125 PS) form, where it returns fuel economy of 5 liters/100km (56.5 Imperial MPG/47 U.S. MPG) and CO2 of 114g/km. The engine achieves 125 lb.-ft. of torque (170Nm) between 1,400 and 4,500 RPM.

The little mill that could is currently made at Ford’s Cologne engine plant in Germany, a facility in which The Blue Oval invested $200 million (€134 million) to renovate and bring to state-of-the-art condition; to increase manufacturing capacity, the engine will begin production in Craiova, Romania later this year, providing potential capacity of 700,000 engines per year. And Ford will most likely need as much manufacturing capacity as it can get, since this powerplant will also be found in the C-MAX, B-Max, and EcoSport, although we wouldn’t be all that surprised to see it offered in the Fiesta as well.

The Motrolix Take

Have you ever heard of a gasoline engine that returns 50 U.S. MPG while propelling a modern, compact-sized vehicle? Yeah, neither have we. While there are a number of diesel engines that offer comparable fuel economy with much higher power numbers, this 1.0 liter inline three-cylinder EcoBoost mill is nothing to sneeze at, especially since it’s the most power-dense engine ever offered by Ford.

Ultimately, all this makes us wonder how much the internal combustion engine can be improved still. The technology has now been around for well over a century and Ford needed to involve engineers all over Europe to develop this particular powerplant, including those at its European Research and Advanced Engineering Centre in Aachen, Germany as well as the Dunton Technical Centre in the UK.

Motrolix Founder with a passion for global automotive business strategy.

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