I went on Edmunds and did some digging, to make a chart of how the base Mustang engines have evolved over the years. It is a great example of how far powertrains have improved in the last 15 years.
Since the 1990's the Mustang base powertrain has gotten dramatically more powerful, while keeping about the same fuel efficiency. Now, for 2011, both power and fuel economy are improved. This same pattern is going to repeat on other vehicles going forward. Instead of just ramping up performance, automakers are going to be looking at efficiency, while trying to preserve power and affordability as best they can.
The good old ICE still has a long way to evolve before it is put out to pasture.
2 comments:
Are these MPG's from EPA or does Edmunds do their own testing?
And didn't EPA recently change their MPG testing protocol? In addition, I'm not sure if the composition of gasoline has changed these past 10 years...but seems to me that there may be more variables at play other than just the improvement of drivetrains that helps to keep the MPG numbers up.
@Ming
Edmunds is quoting EPA numbers.
EPA did change their numbers, which actually penalized later cars, so the trend would become even more pronounced.
Also, gas now is more likely to have a full 10% of ethanol in it, but I am not sure that the EPA tests with E10 fuel, I think they use all gasoline cert fuel.
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