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LSFan00

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  1. It's all cafe regulations related in the US. It's not about whether there are customers for a smaller truck. Eventually some subaru brat type of gamesmanship will happen and tiny pickup bed fanatics will rejoice for a few years.
  2. I'd note that he didn't indicate production would migrate to the US. Naturally, the first mass production Chinese built cars to be sold in the US will be A, B, or C class (and probably the cheaper/value models).
  3. This is a pretty good thread. If Mustang is going global, is it too going to get a performance diesel? That would really drive the ecoboost nuts crazy.
  4. Multi fuel ICE's (including with natural gas) have long held quite a promise and have been evaluated in academic/industrial research settings for many decades. Modern common rail injection systems seem to have provided some renewed interest in it, though. Some natural gas options available today in various ICE applications use diesel engines and inject diesel as the catalyst. There are various interests in this, vs. gasoline-diesel uses, to minimize cost, or minimize emissions (NOX etc) but it really isn't anything new at all. Dual fuel applications from a consumer standpoint with retail light vehicles don't seem real likely, imho. IF it ever made a lot of sense it probably would happen in the heavier truck markets first, then to 3/4 tons 10-20 years later...then regular cars/trucks. As far as "driving people crazy" I'd just again note that I think Ford sells more diesel pickups than any other manufacturer.
  5. Yes, diesel is filthy and dirty and should be held to a higher standard. Oh, btw, Ford sells more diesel pickups in American than anyone else. No big deal, now let's just let this thread die. Thx,
  6. Yay, another theoretical MPG claim that consumers will see as/find bogus.
  7. It is funny the knock on diesel has been that the emissions and turbo etc mean it costs too much to buy and maintain. Oh, ignore what we are doing to gas turbo engines though.
  8. Agree on all Mathew, but for the fact that my memories of Mercedes are not motor related per se, just every little electronic/brake/mechanical piece in the drive train including steering rack that seemed to need replacement prematurely. Glad they are better now, but I won't give them any more money in this lifetime. It remains incredible to compare HP/ratings/power:weights in half ton trucks vs. 10, 20, 30 years ago. Same thing goes for muscle cars really. Ford does seem to have deliberately slow-played the diesel pickup/car game here and I don't think at all it was done out of some sense of ignorance/spite. Timing is everything....
  9. Excellent post Mathew. I'd note that Mercedes strategy of offering the lower HP diesel as their base engine is pretty unique. I don't understand Mercedes or their customers very much, but then again some folks obviously enjoy visiting their mechanics monthly. I am a little surprised as to your conclusions on the South African built Ford 3.0, but not the Fiat 3.0. Once again the market is showing that there is not "one diesel" strategy (mercedes is very unique vs. Audi/VW/BMW for instance). The cummins 5.0 for Nissan/Toyota seem grossly too big to help much in mileage but then again both have only offered one gas option, itself near that displacement and enormously inefficient as far as mileage goes I guess. I do think/hope the Ram 'ecodiesel' will prove less reliable than some fleet buyers/contractors hope. We will continue to see a diversification of engine strategies/options as the cafe numbers ramp up (in addition to materials/frame construction), from hybrids, diesel, plug ins and various combinations thereof. Every mfg decision is related to resources/partners they have on hand short term right now (including Ford), but will inevitably diversify (particularly on products with huge R&D budgets) over the next 5-10 years as competitive sales are analyzed. An all-new aluminum F-150 certainly would have been unduly complicated by a simultaneous diesel option launch. Despite some of the vitriol here at the suggestion/link/idea, I don't think it would have made sense in 2015 anyway, but would be surprised if this is the case toward 2017-2018. And by that point, I also doubt it will be a $5,000 option, either....
  10. Once again this discussion is getting bogged down in trivialities. On the Ford site today you can option a 6.2 for $5200 more as per above. I would hazard a guess it sold more, at this option level, than the optional $6,000 3.2 diesel on the transit will over the next year. My point was that the pricing spread is not exactly "oh my goodness that's preposterous. Delete that engine option. It's not fuel efficient/powerful/ecoboost enough to warrant production." And no, this is not a hate filled emotional rant/plea.
  11. I'd again note it's not an either/or proposition; the 6.2 is a $5200 and the EB3.5 is $2100 over the base F150 3.7 as-is. So having a 2,000-6,000 range of engine options is not exactly new ground for the truck, nor are many fans clamoring to have the 6.2 completely dropped as ludicrously overpriced/uncompetitive.
  12. When the frame itself is made of aluminum/magnesium/carbon/titanium alloy etc. it will really get interesting. I am guessing that is off toward the 2025 era though...cars just aren't made like airplanes.
  13. Dodge/ram has a pretty solid history of bizarre (what I would term dumbass) config/options on their cars and trucks. Agree 100%. This alone probably killed off thirty to forty percent of dart sales when it launched, for instance.
  14. GM/GMC have confirmed the Colorado/Canyon twins getting diesel. If you do want to split hairs over it I suppose you could call these new models 92% of a half ton, and say they never take sales from F-150 shoppers (and of course no one here has ever asked for a Ranger/F-100). Again, Ram, GM, Nissan, and Toyota all have plans to bring a light duty diesel pickup to market between now and 2016 (maybe 2017 on toyota, I dunno). And yes, they're (again) looking at it for the Sierra too. I get that Ford is the leader in this market, and some fanbois just want to dismiss every single one of the others as either/both irrelevant/inferior/desperately jealous of Ford for having a unique engineering/production source of light truck turbo gasoline engines, but it is certainly not going to be a shrinking proportion of light pickup sales over the next 5 years.
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