It seems that nowadays, Ford is going away from naturally aspirated engines to turbochargers on all their vehicles. Although, Ford’s pickup truck lineup and Mustang still have non turbo V8s. Why is this?
I think because they're turbocharged that's why they won't make it a V8. Probably it's what the market likes too even though I would rather a V8 non turbo haha! We're a small market I guess? Haha!
They have to meet the EPA's MPG requirements or face a penalty. It is not a long term solution as small turbocharged engines have short life spans if not engineered right, which the EcoBoosts are not. Ford does not even have a plan in place for carbon cleaning the intake valves on those motors and will void your warranty if you have it done third party.
But to answer your question, it is for MPG and pollution requirements that a big V8 simply is not going to be able to meet.
How much would Ford get fined if they didn’t meet those regulations you mentioned?
I have no idea. It would be a lot. The government is requiring manufacturers to meet MPG goals by year "xxxx" or face steep penalties. Same with pollution levels. Put it to you this way: you can't just pay the fine and move on. You can't meet the requirements, you find another line of work because you won't be making cars in the US market anymore.
It's all about MPG and power. You can't get decent power out of a tiny naturally aspirated engine, but can't get great MPG out of a big one, so turbos are the convenient paper solution. Ford torpedoed pretty much every car they made for the U.S. and focused on trucks and SUVs. They have federal fuel standards to meet on their fleet of vehicles. Trucks and SUVs with standard motors get bad gas mileage, cars get good mileage, so they had to make up for that. This is why they are pushing the EcoBoost stuff. An empty F-150 with a 2.7L turbo will get decent gas mileage, but personally, I think it's silly to put a small turbo V6 in a full size truck. It may produce good low end torque, but all of that pressure and the Gasoline Direct Injection is going to wear it out quickly, especially if you do serious truck work. Scotty's discussed this in many of his videos, but I don't think he ever did one just on EcoBoost stuff.
This is pretty much like the 1970s with those rules about smaller and more efficient cars replacing massive cars with huge V8s that made little power! Well, except for maybe Toyota cuz they still use non turbo i4s and V6s (Except the Supra).