Quote: They said that it is designed for adding, direct injection, turbo-charging, hyrbridization and other technologies down the road. Yet, all of those techs are here today (and some, like turbos have been around a long time). IMO, if they wanted to make a big splash they should have put some of those things in the engine NOW.
Engines have to last 8-10 years at a minimum. You can't go and bring out everything you've got right out of the starting gate.
Ford isn't hurting at all for a high-powered engine. It's got more high-powered motors it can whip out if need be than anyone short of the General. It's hurting for a mid-ranged 230-260hp V6, which is precisely what the Duratec35 is designed to fill.
As time marches on, they'll bring out the more complicated stuff. Just like Nissan moved the VQ35 from 240hp to 300hp over time.
Aside from giving yourself room to grow, bringing out the big engineering only increases the odds of problems. You don't want to give your brand-new multi-billion dollar motor a bad reputation because you came out the gate with a twin-turbocharged, direct-injectection motor that had some teething issues. Look what the 13B-REW used in the 1993+ RX-7 did for the reputation of Rotary engines for a perfect example of what a bad version of a motor can do to an entire line of them.
Quote: AFAIK, Ford's market share is still slipping and this isn't going to bring many customers too them. Sure people might end up getting a Freestyle or something with the new engine (because it isn't underpowered any more) but they won't be stealing any competition from the Japanese (and now Korean) name plates, which is what they NEED to do.
Ford's overall market share is decreasing yes. Because it's truck sales are down 14%. But the all-important car sales are up 7%.
Ford isn't losing ground to the Japanese because it's motors aren't big enough. There are countless reasons why, motors being the least of which. Small cars and small engines are what sells for the Japanese companies. And putting a 300hp motor in a Fusion might sell a couple thousand, but it's not going to sell a quarter-million. For the incredible vast majority of consumers of sedans and crossovers, a V6 only needs to be large enough to provide some confidence-inducing torque, but small enough to provide the fuel efficiency to go with it. Few consumers are wowed by some outrageous high-powered version of family cars or crossovers which is why to this day I have never seen an Altima SE-R on the road, nor do any of my local dealers have any in stock. The demand is virtually nil.
If Ford had a sports coupe that was competing against the 350z then you'd have a point if they were sticking a 265hp motor in it. But, unfortunately, they don't. But in the cars that they are putting the Duratec35 into, it will provide them with more than adequate power for the current market and, in the case of the Edge, what I believe will be class-leading power.
Is that going to "save" Ford? No. Probably not. But sticking a 320hp motor wouldn't help them any more either. All that'd get them is even more people going "Pfft. American companies just don't get it" while they go and buy their 32mpg 260hp Japanese cars.
