This is the topic I'd add this story to, but it's archived:
Good book: High and Mighty: SUVs--The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way - MaDHaVoK 09/24/2002
More Power! - Americans Again Buying Big Engines:
Good book: High and Mighty: SUVs--The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way - MaDHaVoK 09/24/2002
More Power! - Americans Again Buying Big Engines:
- Automakers installed large V-8 engines in 29.1 percent of all passenger vehicles built in North America for the U.S. market last year, the highest rate since 1985, according to Ward's Automotive Reports. The rate has risen every year since 2000, when V-8s went into 25.3 percent of North American-built cars and trucks for American drivers, Ward's statistics show.
In the same four-year stretch, smaller 4-cylinder installations fell from nearly 27 percent to 25.3 percent.
Analysts and industry executives give a variety of reasons for the rise in V-8s, which use more fuel but produce more power than smaller engines: strong demand for trucks and sport utility vehicles, relatively inexpensive gas prices, and technology that's leading to improved fuel efficiency, even in bigger engines.
The popular Hemi, which dates to the 1950s, gets its name from the hemispherical shape of its combustion chamber, which Chrysler executives say allows it to produce more power and achieve greater fuel economy. Chrysler introduced the newest version of the Hemi in 2002 on heavy-duty trucks, then began offering it as an option on the Dodge Ram 1500 pickup and Durango SUV.
Chrysler says a Hemi-equipped 2004 Ram 1500 can get 14 miles per gallon in the city and 18 mpg on the highway, roughly 10 percent better than the non-Hemi engine in the previous Ram.
Environmental advocates say making vehicles more powerful is the wrong approach -- Detroit automakers should be focusing instead on hybrid and other ``green'' technology that foreign makers excel at.