Ford is full bore towards downsizing and turbo charging spark-ignition engines. They do this mainly due to tightening CAFE standards and to try and lead the charts in estimated EPA mpg rankings in pickup trucks for bragging rights. Right now, the 2018 Ford F150 with 2.7 Ecoboost is second place of all full-size choices @ 20/26/22, city, highway, combined ; tied for 3rd place out of all truck/engine combinations when you count identical GMC and Chevy model trucks as one and you don't double count the 2.8 Duramax #1 in 2WD and #2 in 4WD. Moreover, the F150 2.7 in 2WD standard duty is tied for 1st place for all gas-powered trucks, full size and other wise, and that tie is against a 2.5 liter 4 cylinder with 144 less horsepower and 209 less peak ft-lbs torque and that 4 cylinder happens to be in a mid-sized pickup; The refreshed 2.7 Ecoboost in the 2018 pickup even beats out Honda Ridgeline; and now F150 is even closer to the Ram Ecodiesel thanks to the cheating controversy. When Ecodiesel recently got reentered into fueleconomy.gov, it lost 1/1/1, city, hwy, combined; and now F150 has the same city rating as Ecodiesel, only one lower on the hwy and one lower combined. Not only did the lowered Ecodiesel narrow the score, but Ford helped by getting their city rating raised by 1 in their most economical version for 2018.

PU MPG Leaders: Some of these might be slightly off, but you get the point I hope
1. GMC/Chevy Colorado/Canyon 2WD/4WD 2.8 4 cyl TD; 22/30/25, 20/28/23
2. Ram 1500 2WD 3.0 6 cyl. 8 spd TD 20/27/23
3. Ford F150 2WD 2.7 6 cyl 10 spd TT 20/26/22
3. GMC/Chevy Colorado/Canyon 2WD 2.5 4 cyl Regular 20/26/22
4. Ford F150 2WD 2.7 6 cyl 10 spd TT (LT Tire) 19/25/21
4. Honda Ridgeline 3.5 6 cyl 6 spd Regular 19/25/21

We all know the big knock off on downsizing with turbos and gas engines...Yes you can get better mpg under light load, but all of that advantage goes away when you're under heavy load or a lead footed, because the turbos spool up and the relatively rich air-to-fuel ratio must be maintained with all that added air. But this technology is cheap compared to diesel and electrification, and the EPA tests only under light load. Two other big factors that could help with pickups are further weight reduction and lowering drag. Weight reduction can only go so far, because these are trucks that must tow and haul a bunch safely to meet customer expectations and we can't be towing with super light trucks. They could come back with an F100 that's lighter and tows less and put a couple of big torquey four bangers in them, but that's a topic for another day and few people want what I want. I'm not engineer minded, but it seems to me that lowering drag is an area that could be vastly improved for pickup trucks that would help in all duty cycles of any power train, but this about power trains of the future, and more specifically, mainstream, affordable power trains for the average buyer.

GM by all indications, seems to be staying towards another direction; we may see another generation of it as early as 2019 MY, but I'm thinking this direction will accomplish the same result as Ford's downsizing and turbocharging strategy; that is it will improve mpg in low-load situations only. But it's a totally different way, and I'm not sure if one is better than another. You all will have to tell me. I'm undecided. That's why I'm bringing it up for discussion, because one way or another, pickups of the future are going to be more fuel economical even if it's mostly just on paper. They'll have to be by law. Maybe not Toyotas or Nissans, but the Big Three will if they want to keep selling hundreds of thousands per year.

More advanced cylinder deactivation is where it looks like GM is headed. With the next generation being called dynamic skip fire (DSF), and maybe even a 48 volt mild hybrid system with a start/stop with a generator to manage it; maybe in tandem (I've got a 36 volt mild hybrid in a 2007 Saturn Aura that GM also had available in a Saturn Vue, so it's not new and the technology works good and can be reliable and durable, as mine is, but from my perspective, from what I've seen with mine, it doesn't save much fuel if any).

Ford and GM and Ram will all have diesels. The diesel will help in all duty cycles and all work situations, heavy and light, city and highway, but the diesels will be packaged on the high end of trims and configurations due to the very high cost of building and certifying them. Unless diesel technology can overcome the NOx dilemma and the cost to rectify that so-called pollution, or the regulators layoff to some degree, this will not change. Plug in hybrids and electrics are also very expensive, but with pickups they need even more battery power to power them and so the technology applied to them is double the challenge.

Mazda is bringing HCCI to passenger cars. It's sort of a combination spark-ignition, compression-ignition, as best as I can understand it, but it's mostly like a diesel as combustion will ignite mostly via compression with a spark when needed, except that it will run on gasoline. Shame on those diesel bashers who say HCCI will be the end of the diesel. They don't know what they don't know. It's not the fuel that makes an engine type; it's the process, and HCCI is more diesel-engine like than gas-engine like no matter what fuel it runs on. Other manufacturers have spent plenty on HCCI and it is possible to build them, but there are NHV issues under load, which would be more of a problem for trucks and SUVs than for passenger cars, and Hyundai recently announced that they had abandoned HCCI, because the exhaust treatment needed to certify them was getting close to the cost of the diesel, so it wasn't going to be worth the effort. So as you can tell, although this technology seems more viable than it did twenty years ago, it still has issues of marketability and costs.

So if we discount plug-in hybrids and full electrics as too expensive and too much battery requirement for pickup trucks, and realizing that diesels are limited to the rich and famous due to cost, at least for now, that leaves this mild stuff for improving mpg during low load and for city mpg improvement as mass-produced engines for the market: Right now, it looks like these are the most viable options for truck makers with today's technology and cost parameters: (1)downsizing combined with turbo charging spark-ignition; or (2) mild hybrids for improved city economy; or (3) this new and improved cylinder deactivation system called dynamic skip fire; or (4) a combination of two or more of these techniques.

So Delphi is saying now that this new cylinder deactivation system or DSF doesn't merely block off cylinders when not needed like GMs current AFM system, but rather it uses software combined with hardware to monitor and decide on each cycle, for each cylinder, based on torque need, whether to fire or not fire in real time. Undetectable management they say. They have demonstrated a GMC Yukon with the 6.2L V8. They claim it needs only 30 hp to cruise down the highway. But I've been thinking about this...

To me, theoretically, this DSF is no better; no worse; no less complex than downsizing and turbo charging right??? When you don't need torque, the cylinders don't fire. That's like having a smaller engine like you have with a downsized, turbo charged engine. When you need the torque of the DSF managed engine, it becomes it's full-sized engine with all its displacement and cylinders burning gasoline like before, just like when I need power and torque out of my 2.7 Ecoboost, it drinks gas just like a big engine and has the character of a big engine due to the added hp and torque that the turbo gives it. It doesn't have quite the hardware of a turbo but it is at least as complex.

So which is a better strategy and why?

Will one beat out the other, or will we have some of both?

There are rumors of new Ram engines from FCA; not with the next coming all-new Ram 1500 but in successive years they say. The end of the Hemi for the pickup some say. There is talk of an inline 6 to replace the venerable Hemi around 2020, but no talk about how it will be aspirated or it's displacement size, but that sounds exciting to me. I've liked inline sixes ever since I owned one, but I wasn't crazy about my straight sixes fuel economy. Not bad, but not really good for the horsepower that it gave up, but it was indestructible.

There are rumors of another inline six for Ram. Something between a 3.5 and 4.5 inline six diesel to presumably replace both the 3.0 I4 in the Ram Promaster Van, and the 3.0 V6 Ecodiesel for Jeep Cherokee and Ram 1500. I also like the thought of an inline smaller diesel, but it doesn't help with the cost and reliability concerns with diesels in general. When we get to the point where I start reading about a new technology to replace select catalyst reaction requiring DEF, then I'll get excited about diesels. While it makes sense for inlines going forward due to slightly cheaper cost compared to V engines with all these add on costs that are coming and it really makes sense for turbo charged gas engines, diesel engineers have to come up with far more than that to make them viable to the mainstream for light-duty trucks below 8600 GVWR.