AFSCME 3357-HOF'S BLOG

Ford Cuts Quarterly Loss in Half
Also to Offer Buyouts to ALL UAW Workers
Product line could use an Ecoboost
Ford Motor Company announced that its 4th quarter loss for 2007 was $2.75 billion, much less than the $5.63 billion in 2006. Ford predicted continued losses in 2008 with a return to profitability in 2009.

Ford also announced that it was going to offer buyouts to its remaining 54,000 United Auto Workers employees. It is unknown (after previous buy-outs) how many of the workers would be likely to accept the buyouts. Many of the workers would be replaced by new, lower-paid workers under the two-tier contract that Ford negotiated with the UAW last fall.

Primary Source: Routers

One technology that Ford is counting on to help it with the turnaround is the new EcoBoost engine family. EcoBoost is a new family of twin-turbo-charged, direct-injection gasoline engines. The EcoBoost engine is set to debut on the Lincoln MKS sedan in 2009. The new engines are touted as being clean, efficient and powerful. Ford claims 275 horsepower for the2.0 liter version. This is 75 more than Volkswagen/Audi's current 2.0 liter turbo-di engine, one of Ward Automotive's 10 Best Engines. Ford plans to couple these transmissions with a computer-shifted manual transmission (similar to Volkswagen's DSG) for economy gains exceeding 20%. Ford is planning on installing the Ecoboost engine in 500,000 cars per year by 2012. (For background information on gasoline direct injection, click this link to the Wikipedia article on the subject.)

It will be interesting to see if Ford's new engines are docile enough, durable enough and reliable enough from the get go to make tech-phobic Ford-owners happy. Historically, many people have refused to buy turbocharged cars for fear that a turbo failure will ruin the entire engine. It should be noted that the ecoboost design relies not on one, but two turbos. Secondly, turbochargers tend to increase an engine's optimal octane requirement. That's a natural byproduct of the turbo's purpose of cramming more air into less space. The higher pressure causes engine knocking. Octane is an indirect measurement of a fuel's resistance to knocking. If Ford says the horsepower ratings that it has published are based upon regular fuel, then in theory, with higher octane fuel, or even e-85 or methanol, hotrodders should have a field-day with these engines, perhaps even doubling their output.

Here's a Youtube Video of Ford's technical presentation on the Ecoboost engine.