Ford F-150 EcoBoost
Five years ago, when Ford considered a push to put a pricey, premium V6 in more F-150s, it seemed like a dangerous gamble with a macho, full-sized pickup known for toughness and capacity. To many dealers and company insiders, it seemed like a bad joke.
"I once said, "Bubba don't buy nothing but a V8, and we've got a lot of Bubbas out here,'" recalls Martin Gubbels, owner of Big Sky Ford-Lincoln in Torrington, Wyo.
But Ford has had shocking initial success selling its high-performance turbocharged EcoBoost V6 in the Ford F-150, and Gubbels has become a believer: "A redneck will buy an EcoBoost when they're told by a knowledgeable salesperson that this thing has more horsepower, torque and better fuel economy than a V8. They'll buy it."
For the past four months, combined sales of the 3.5-liter direct-injected turbocharged EcoBoost V6 and the F-150's base engine, the naturally aspirated 3.7-liter V6, consistently have topped sales of the two V8 engines offered in the F-150. The V6s consistently account for at least 55 percent of the sales mix, and the EcoBoost has the lion's share of the V6 sales.
And it wasn't just the addition of a second V6 that went against conventional wisdom. Ford decided to price the EcoBoost above the top-selling V8 — a move even bolder than it seems now because it was made before the spike in gasoline prices.
So far that risky road looks like a good choice. But for Ford engineers and marketers, it was a road filled with obstacles.
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"We knew 'there's no replacement for displacement,'" says Doug Scott, manager of Ford's truck marketing group. "That's a very popular saying among full-sized pickup customers — which just shows their love for the V8 engine. We knew we had a marketing challenge."
But they succeeded. The EcoBoost is available on all models of the F-150 except the Harley-Davidson model. The EcoBoost V6 is not offered on the F-250 or other F-series models.
The EcoBoost is rated at 16 mpg city/22 highway — only a slight edge over the most popular V8's 15/21. But the EcoBoost V6 makes 365 hp and 420 pounds-feet of torque, compared with the V8's 360 hp and 380 pounds-feet of torque. Its edge in towing capacity is significant.
In May, June and July, the F-150 engine mix ran 41 percent EcoBoost and 15 percent 3.7-liter V6 base engine, Ford says.
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The EcoBoost V6 was introduced in the F-150 in January. The base V6, also new for the 2011 model year, went on sale in December.
In 2006, support for an EcoBoost V6 for the F-150 was low inside the company, even though Ford and its rivals had long offered V6s to low-end pickup buyers. Currently the Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra, Ram and Toyota Tundra are offered with V6s.
Historically, Ford offered V6s mostly to satisfy fleet buyers who needed the most inexpensive truck available with decent fuel economy. Very few V6 F-150s were sold to retail buyers, and those that were tended to be the $199-a-month lease deal specials. Most years the V6 accounted for well under 10 percent of sales.
But the EcoBoost name was taking off in other Ford vehicles. EcoBoost is Ford's marketing term for direct-injection turbocharged engines that deliver high performance and better fuel economy.
Proving the case
After Ford leaders approved the plan in 2006 to begin developing an EcoBoost for possible use in the F-150, engineers still had to prove that a V6 could top a V8 in performance, durability and fuel economy. That was the only way to get the green light to put the EcoBoost in the pickup.
Eric Kuehn, Ford's chief engineer of the F-150 at the time, now is Ford's chief engineer for global hybrid and battery electric vehicles. He and his team started hand-building a prototype EcoBoost V6 engine.
Kuehn recalls making some of the parts by hand. Engineers had to code the software to make sure the experimental engine would drive the test truck.
On a summer morning in 2007, after months of refinement, Kuehn took a red 2008 F-150 to a test track at the product development center in Dearborn, Mich. Inside was the handmade prototype EcoBoost V6.
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Kuehn invited product development chief Derrick Kuzak, marketing boss Jim Farley, powertrain engineering head Barb Samardzich, Scott and a handful of dealers.
Kuehn asked them to drive the EcoBoost truck on a variety of terrains.
"It was done to get everyone aligned that this engine could do it," Kuehn says. "You're at that in-between stage where you've started the program development, but you need program approval. It doesn't totally seal the deal, but it helps."
In this case, it sealed the deal.
"It was magic," Samardzich says of the test drive that day. "It was one of the things we did and we normally don't do, because we look at objective data to make our product decisions. But this engine was so against convention that someone said, "Let's put it in a truck and show what it can do.'"
It was a key moment in changing attitudes within Ford, Samardzich says: "Once we realized the content of the engine, the torque and the dedication to sustainability, we thought, "OK, we'll sell some of these.' But the response in the marketplace even surprised us."
Making a business case
Doubts about putting an EcoBoost V6 in the F-150 bled beyond Ford's walls and dealerships to the automotive press, which learned of the plan in late 2007.
"As part of the media launch of the new F series, I talked about our sustainability strategy and a part of that was EcoBoost and how it was going to be one of the most fundamental pieces of our fuel economy strategy," Kuzak recalls.
"The feedback was disbelief that we felt that North American customers would ever accept smaller-displacement engines and engines with fewer cylinders. That they just weren't ready."
But Kuzak says Ford leaders built the business case for the EcoBoost V6 based on CEO Alan Mulally's key tenet to be a fuel-economy leader in every vehicle segment.
Kuzak says the consumer cost of ownership favored EcoBoost over options such as hybrid or diesel engines. A gasoline-electric hybrid costs about $5,000 more than a conventional gasoline-powered vehicle, and a diesel is about $1,000 to $4,000 more, says Mike Omotoso, senior manager of global powertrain at J.D. Power and Associates in suburban Detroit.
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By contrast, an EcoBoost costs about $750 more than the smaller of the two V8s offered on the F-150. Kuzak says the payback on EcoBoost, with gasoline at $4 per gallon, is a year to 18 months.
Says Kuzak: "And diesels and hybrids, even at fuel costs of $4 a gallon, which was what I used in considering it, it would be five to 10 years in terms of the payback time. So this was the right decision from a customer perspective."
When Kuzak and Ford leaders were making the EcoBoost F-150 decision, gasoline prices were relatively low and stable, at about $2.20 per gallon. Kuzak says Ford saw the EcoBoost as a way to insulate the F-150 from rising fuel prices.
"It allowed us to continue to provide that most important product and maintain that leadership, independent of fuel prices rising," Kuzak says. "So it was clearly risk mitigation on our part."
Though it is rated at only 1 mpg better in city and highway fuel economy than the most-popular V8, that's significant for fleet buyers, analysts say. "If you have 100 trucks doing 20,000 miles per year, then 1 mpg savings adds up," says J.D. Power's Omotoso.
