gasoline direct injection

You probably drive a gasoline car. And surely you've heard of cars with diesel engines. But how about a car with an engine that burns both fuels, at the same time? That's what Chrysler is working on, it turns out, funded in part with research dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy. Author Mike...

We rarely think about what's in our gasoline when we fill the tank, but carmakers have to. Mercedes-Benz has just launched a new direct-injected 3.5-liter V-6 engine in its 2012 SLK model, with an innovative "lean burn" mode that will also be used on a smaller four-cylinder engine. The "Stratified"...

Toyota is the latest automaker to announce it’s headed down the downsized engine path as it strives for improved fuel economy, following the likes of Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai, all of which have announced similar plans in the recent past. Toyota has long been the champion of hybrid...

The U.S. is just getting its first taste of the funky Mazda2, a car that has helped rewrite the rulebook on affordable hatchbacks by showing that cheap doesn’t have to mean drab and boring to drive. However, the next-generation of Mazda’s global small car is currently in the works and...

Subaru is sticking to its almost trademark horizontally opposed or ‘boxer’ engine for its future lineup of cars, improving on the design, making it more refined and fuel efficient with each generation. The third and latest generation of the engine--the first major redesign in 21...

Used to be that turbos were used in performance cars, from the Saab Turbos of the late Seventies to BMW's current range of twin-turbo sixes. These days, the little air pumps more often make smaller engines perform like bigger ones to give fuel economy. In brief, a turbocharger uses exhaust gases to...

We said it on Friday: Smaller, more efficient engines are going to be the main way we increase gas mileage in the next few years (in that case, a four-cylinder 2010 Buick LaCrosse). This morning, Ford has underlined that theme once more by announcing three new applications of their EcoBoost engines...

Sure, hybrids and electric cars are great, but they sell in small numbers. The way most cars will meet newer, more aggressive fuel-economy rules is by making engines smaller and more efficient. Case in point: the 2010 Buick LaCrosse, a midsize sedan now offered with a 2.4-liter direct-injected...

At December's Los Angeles Auto Show, Hyundai made a big splash by saying it would no longer offer V-6 engines in its Sonata midsize car or its Tucson compact crossover. Instead, it replaced them with higher-performance, more fuel-efficient four-cylinder motors. But Hyundai's just one of many makers...

Coming off the successful launch of its 2011 Ford Fiesta subcompact at last month's Los Angeles Auto Show, Ford is following up with its even more important 2012 Ford Focus compact. This will be the first complete redesign of the North American Focus in more than a decade, and at last U.S. buyers...

As U.S. carmakers get serious about building world-class compact cars, one of the most eagerly awaited entries is the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze, which will face off against a totally new 2012 Ford Focus as well as revised models of the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, and Nissan Sentra. Now reports say that...

Car sales may have plunged to their lowest per-capita level in decades, but for the green-minded among us, there's some good news: Fuel economy is now more important to car buyers than are cupholders. That's one piece of data gleaned from a lengthy survey of car buyers by the big accounting firm...

We always enjoy talking cars with the opinionated Alex Nunez from Autoblog, most recently last week when we both appeared on FoxNews.com's Fox Car Report with dapper host Gary Gastelu. This week's guest was Derrick Kuzak, who heads up global product development for Ford. Meaning he's the guy...

We keep saying that one of the ways all cars will get greener and more efficient is for their engines to get smaller and work harder. One of the first production examples of this is Ford's EcoBoost V6 engine, which delivers the power of a V8 with better gas mileage. Now a couple of experimental new...

Here at GreenCarReports.com, we read a lot. And increasingly, our friends send us stuff they think we'd be interested in. Which is how we came across an abstract of a study done by one Christopher R. Knittel at the University of California-Davis. Knittel looked at the factors affecting carmakers'...

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the first three loans to be granted under the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. The lucky winners, totaling $8 billion worth of low-interest loans from the US Department of Energy: Ford, Nissan, and Tesla. FORD Amount...

Ford's new V6 EcoBoost engine lowers fuel economy while raising power; it'll appear first in the 2010 Taurus SHO