Autoline Discusses Faults In VW MQB Program, And Ford Reportedly Testing Diesel V6 For New F-150

It seems Ford is keen to squeeze even more MPGs from its aluminum-bodied F-150, and Volkswagen’s MQB platform isn’t living up the hype, as per John McElroy of Autoline.

Ford Testing Diesel V6 For New F-150

The Blue Oval is reportedly testing a 3.0L V6 diesel engine to compete with the Dodge Ram EcoDiesel. The new diesel offering will reportedly hit the market in 2017, and will offer even greater fuel economy than Ford’s new 2.7L V6 EcoBoost motor.

Comparing the fuel economy of a RWD quad-cab Ram EcoDiesel HFE, it’s obvious that the 2015 Ford F-150 with the 2.7L EcoBoost V6 still doesn’t quite cut it, despite the F-150’s substantial weight saving measures.

Even so, the fuel economy figures don’t take into account capability such as towing and payload.

So far, buyers seem to be responding to the Ram EcoDiesel. In September, Fiat-Chrysler announced that 60 percent of all EcoDiesel sales were conquests, and that it would increase its EcoDiesel mix to 20 percent of all Ram 1500 production. Last month, that number shot up to 25 percent.

Is Volkswagen’s MQB Platform Strategy Iffy?

In other news, the Volkswagen Group posted €202.5 billion in revenue and €12.7 billion in profits in 2014, but it seems that overall profit margins are declining at the automaker.

Autoline says that the group’s MQB platform strategy may not be working the way it hoped. Launched three years ago, the platform was supposed to help cut costs by €19 billion by 2020.

When the overall costs savings didn’t show up in 2014, the company announced another program to cut an additional €5-billion by axing slow-selling models and trimming-back some vehicle build combinations.

“On paper the MQB program looks really good, but it requires a massive upfront investment and it looks like it’s turning out to be a very expensive way to cut costs,” said McElroy.

Watch the video, which was released in March, for yourself.