Some initial thoughts about the 2025 Ford Explorer – plus a Clover – and a retrospective about the Explorer!
And now the Clover!
And the Then vs. the Now:
. . .
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It’s likely the case that a larger engine could get better real world mileage because it doesn’t have to work as hard to move the car. Plus, the larger engine is more likely to last longer because it is less stressed.
There’s a crossing intersection, an engine wants to neither be worked too lightly nor too hard. Fuel economy is a function of the vehicle in large part, weight, aerodynamics, rolling resistance and speed. This takes some amount of energy, it can be calculated. Having a lumbering engine that is sitting low in RPM isn’t going to change this and having unused capacity has a fuel use to just keep the mass of the engine rotating. You could put a 400 HP V8 or a 250 HP V6 engine in the same vehicle and get close to the same MPG practically. And the same life expectancy as well. Of course as you tax the engine it will wear quicker but you really have to push an engine for this to happen. We may have hit this point trying to use very small displacement twin turbo 4 cylinders in too heavy vehicles but also consider that commercial trucks use very large 4 and 6 cylinders and go a million miles and that’s because they have lots of gears and can always keep their engine in it’s ideal window. Or look at generators where they have an exact defined power requirement and put exactly right sized engine that will run at it’s optimal RPM, power and consumption point. You can’t really improve upon most generators and they don’t need variable gear boxes other than sometimes to get very large ones up and spinning. Once they’re turning they have the alternator spinning at it’s RPM the engine will sit at one RPM indefinitely and do this for a long time as long as maintenance is kept up.