Small is beautiful...

[jwight]

At this month’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Ford President Mark Fields described the 2011 Focus as a critical shift in direction for the U.S. maker, which sees its future increasingly dominated by small cars, rather than big trucks. And it isn’t alone. Cross-town rival General Motors unleashed an assortment of its own downsized models at the show, from the Korean-made Spark minicar to the long-delayed Cruze sedan. And Chrysler is readying its own offerings, including the U.S. version of parent Fiat’s 500 microcar.

Rising fuel prices certainly feed the interest in small cars. Whitacre’s predecessor, Fritz Henderson, revealed that GM’s operating assumption is that gasoline will eventually level off at somewhere around $4 a gallon and encourage consumers to downsize.

There are some signs of a paradigm shift that isn’t bound to fuel prices and affordability alone. Though its sales dropped 16 percent last year, British-made Mini easily outpaced the overall U.S. market and remains a hopeful sign to those who believe the future will be downsized. Better yet, its products command a premium that breaks the classic paradigm in which American automobiles have been priced, to a large degree, by the inch and pound.

Ford, rivals betting small is beautiful - The Driver's Seat- msnbc.com

[TMACK]

All, apropos to this post, just finished reading a very interesting article in Scientific American, Feb 2010, "Better Mileage Now", how "Emerging technologies could make the internal-combustion engine substantially more fuel-efficient, even as green vehicles make inroads".


Pretty much describes how the ICE can be enhanced for better fuel economy using today's technology.