0.6 liter, 48 volts, and 12 gears to boost MPG?

They wanted me to pay to see the text, and I don't really want to listen ;-)

The germans and japanese really like these small ices. IMHO its all about some countries taxing based on cubic inches. In Japan 660 cc and bellow get lower taxes (if other things for kei cars are met) and don't need to comply with some of the safety requirements. The government is getting rid of some of the lower taxes now, but other countries also have this lower tax lower safety programs.

bmw dropped a 650 cc ice in the i3 as a range extender. I don't see much practical about such a small ice as it tends to be less efficient, and have worse NVH than say a 1L 3 cylinder in a car. The prius 1.8 L only weighs 220 so downsizing lower than 1 liter doesn't really save much weight.

standardizing on 48V accessories like power steering and air conditioning could drop costs for these things and increase efficiency.

 

We've always had to have smaller displacements due to the cost of fuel. Ten years ago you were all driving around with big V8's and a 4 litre straight 6 was regarded as small. Now many of your home grown cars have 2 litre engines. At the same time we had 4 litre and V8 engines in bigger cars and 2 litres was regarded as normal in Prius sized cars, with our fuel costs generally double yours.

Now fuel costs have risen significantly and as your engine sizes have reduced, so have ours. So long as the performance is still there and the economy is good, then people don't really seem to care.

The Ford Mondeo is a popular choice here and also popular amongst taxi drivers. I had a 1997 2 litre petrol Mondeo taxi manual. It would get about 44 mpg UK on a run. Now Ford are introducing a 1 litre Mondeo! Offers the same performance and better economy than the one i had 15 years earlier.

Ford’s next generation Mondeo will combine with 1.0 EcoBoost engine to redefine family car efficiency

Easy to ridicule but if you had to start paying $8/$9 a US gallon, you'd consider some compromise.

 

Not all of us. I got rid of my V8 thirty years ago Wednesday, replacing it with a 2.3 liter I4. In that post OPEC Embargo / fuel crisis era, 4 cylinder cars were the norm for quite a while. While many people started returning to 6 and 8 cylinders in the 1990s, my household never did.

 

That's interesting to note. I remember when the Focus first made it over your way and the lowest engine it came with was a 2.0. The way fuel costs will be heading, it's future insurance to have a more economical car. If not for today, but 4 or 5 years down the line.

ps, I've just looked at the US Ford website and the Fiesta comes with a 1.6 engine as smallest and the Focus a 2.0. Nothing about a 1.0 Focus that I can find. Unless it's due to be released.

 

It's there as an option for the SE. Being only available with a manual, it was meant to give mpg bragging points for the Fiesta. But it got caught using the same error as the Ford hybrids did recently.

 

bmw and chrysler were the big proponents of the straight 6. IIRC chyrsler got rid of the slant six in favor of the v6 a couple of decades ago. A straight 6 is naturally ballanced but it is two long for fwd. If you are using the 6 cyclinder design for fwd or a mix the v6 is better, but bmw's new turbo 2L 4 gets more power torque than their old normally aspirated 6, so now they just have turbo charged 4, 6, and 8s. Now if you want a straight 6, it will come turbo charged with at least 300 hp from rwd bmw.

Ford Focus 1.0-liter EcoBoost to only get manual trans in US - Autoblog

The epa mpg is not out yet on the upcoming ford focus 1L, but it likely won't be that much better than the sfe 2L focus (33 combined mpge, versus the 1L fiesta 36 combined mpg, maybe they can get 37 mpg combined in a more aero focus)
Compare Side-by-Side

 

I believe the fueleconomy.gov site had the old numbers then revised them when ford informed them of the new numbers