Are you old enough to remember this? If you drove a 4-cylinder vehicle, you needed to get a running start up a hill or it seemed the car would never make it to the top. Honeywell Turbo Technologies is currently working with automotive manufacturers to give consumers an affordable, fuel-efficient, downsized turbocharged engine. The turbocharging technology has been used for years for commercial vehicles and globally for passenger vehicles.
In 2008 when the large 8-cylinder engines were not as popular due to the economy and higher fuel costs, the 4-cylinder engine was more in demand. At that time, the turbochargers were only available in two percent of gasoline and flex-fuel vehicles. In 2011, turbochargers became available in 9.5 percent and it’s predicted by LMC Automotive that by 2017 that figure will be at 20 percent.
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The Environmental Protection Agency is pleased because turbocharging improves CO2 and fuel economy at the same time. That is good news for us all! This has been proven over the past seven years because now manufacturers can make smaller, more efficient engines without sacrificing power in the vehicles. A smaller engine enables a 20 to 40 percent fuel economy improvement. That is something we can all enjoy.
Hybrid and electric vehicles come with large price tags and are expensive to repair, and battery material mining is hard on the environment. Many people don’t consider that we are burning fuel and coal to produce the electricity to power their electric car. Vehicles equipped with the Honeywell turbocharged engine let a consumer enjoy a 40 mile per gallon (higher on the highway) ride. Many of these vehicles also come with a price tag of $20,000 or less.
Here is a list of some of the vehicles with Honeywell turbocharged engines:
• Ford’s Eco Boost vehicles
• Chevrolet’s Sonic, Cruze and Silverado
• Dodge Dart (scheduled for release later this year)
• Fiat 500 Abarth
• Volkswagen Touareg
Innovation is always born when the need is there!
Please give us a call if you have any questions at 253-854-6762 or visit our website.
