The Ford EcoSport is undoubtedly the most awaited car in the Indian market. The vehicle was first unveiled at the 2012 Auto Expo and since then Ford dealers have been flooded with inquires for the compact SUV. Some dealers have even taken bookings, albeit unofficially. With so much hype around the EcoSport, Ford is all set to launch the vehicle in early 2013, positioning it against the Renault Duster. However, the EcoSport will be priced lower than the Duster, thereby undercutting it by a slight amount.
Ford can easily price the EcoSport aggressively as the vehicle shares many parts and components with the new Fiesta. Furthermore, the diesel engine is already being manufactured in the country, while the EcoBoost engine might make its way into more Ford cars in the near future. The biggest cost saving that Ford will get with the EcoSport is the sub 4-metres length of the car, giving the American automaker crucial savings on excise duty.
“EcoSport will be a value proposition as a sub-four metre car. Over 70 per cent of all cars sold in India are small cars sold in this segment. Apart from 1.0 litre petrol engine that performs like a 1.4, we will also have a global diesel engine fit in the car. Including automatic transmission, we will give customers all sort of options in different variants,” Michael Boneham, MD and CEO, Ford India, said.
Ford will offer many segment first features on the EcoSport including button start-stop, SYNC technology and even an option for automatic transmission. The PowerShift gearbox will be offered on the 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine, which has already received the 2012 International engine of the year award. The EcoSport will surely do a Figo for Ford, helping them boost volumes tremendously in the Indian market. The compact SUV segment will soon see the launch of the Mahindra Quanto, while other manufacturers are also working on bringing compact SUVs to the market.
Source – MyDigitalFC
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Kedar September 12, 2012 at 6:32 pm
Now thats a great news.
In Renault Duster add sedan were crying because they were not able to Duster now Duster owners will cry as they wont be able to buy Ecosport. hahaha
S Pani September 12, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Its not really news, as it was pretty much to be expected.
Will it get the 1.5L diesel engine from the Fiesta or the age old 1.4L Duratorq from the Figo/Classic??
In Brazil it is still available with the age old 1.4L Duratorq.
Sushrut September 13, 2012 at 9:21 am
I think they will stick to the old engine in favor of cost. And anyways in India, as far as its a diesel not everyone bothers about how old the engine is. So I guess they will get away with it and the looks more than compensate anyways.
Saurav Keshan September 12, 2012 at 6:41 pm
But one should really not compare EcoSport to Duster. Duster is more like a no frills airline and EcoSport like a 787, I would say :D
ashwin November 29, 2012 at 1:22 pm
If I would intervene. Ecopsort should be compared with Quanto as both are sub 4 mts and are placed in same segment like excise benefits.
Javeid Khan November 29, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Ashwin, the Ecopsprt is a far superior product than the Quanto. While the Quanto’s driving dynamics are ragged, the Ecosport uses the Fiesta’s underpinnings and will be a pure drivers car. I think there is absolutely no comparison to the Quanto and the Ecosport will be placed in the Duster category, even price wise.
Kedar September 12, 2012 at 7:56 pm
S Pani Ecosport will get 1.5 TDCi Engine from new Fiesta.
BTW S Pani did you join the Motorbeam forums. It will be good to discuss with you on forums as well.
Ganesh babu September 12, 2012 at 8:00 pm
This SUV Silhouette will jell well for the diesel mill. But it would be the Fiesta which would do full justice to the brilliant 1 liter, 3 pot ecoboost engine. Not even the sedan but the lightweight hatcback Fiesta would return some 40 KM to a liter. The British Govt is offering tax sops for cars powered with this engine!!
With a light nose, the car’s handling would be blistering too
Faisal Khan September 12, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Ganesh, I am sure Ford will plonk in the 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine in the Indian Fiesta in the near future.
Ganesh babu September 13, 2012 at 9:06 am
That would be v.nice, Faisal!
And the fact that Ford intends to pass on the sub 4m excise duty sop to its Ecosport customers means Ford is growing up ;) I’m getting a positive feeling that Ford might not price the 1-liter ecoboost Fiesta avariciously.
Faisal, setting the imagination on fire, what would it be like to have a RWD Nano powered by this 3-pot genius?! Y not, after-all Tata does source engines from Fiat?! It could also source this engine from Ford?! Maybe in the year 2015??
Faisal Khan September 13, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Ganesh, Tata has an exclusive tie-up with Fiat, they can’t source engines from Ford. More so, Fiat also has wonderful compact petrol engines in its portfolio, like the TwinAir and MultiAir.
harish September 13, 2012 at 11:33 am
I think ford will use the old 1.4L Duratorq engine( currently used in Figo/Classic). The only problem with ford is the maintenance cost, it is too high….. and also the boot space( since it is sub 4 meter)….
so duster will be much better option in terms of mileage, maintenance cost, big boot space, muscular looks, etc………
Faisal Khan September 13, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Harish, no Ford will not use the 1.4-litre Duratorq engine on the EcoSport as it produces 68 PS of power, which is too less to lug around a vehicle like the EcoSport. Maintenance of Ford vehicles has dropped drastically.
Velutha September 13, 2012 at 1:27 pm
B U L L S H I T ! Stop being desperate for more clicks on your little portal. The EcoSport is based on the New Fiesta Platform and will be more expensive then it. Look at any other Sedan based SUV in the World and you will understand, and you seriously need to.
Below are some SUV & the sedan whose platform they are based on
CR-V (Civic), Duster (Logan), Outlander (Lancer), Juke (Sunny), need more?
Faisal Khan September 13, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Velutha, I guess you need to read the above article again. Does the Fiesta get small car excise benefits? NO! Will the EcoSport get it? YES. The EcoSport is less than 4-metres in length and thus will have only 12% excise duty, against 27% on the new Fiesta. Now you do the maths.
Ganesh babu September 16, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Wow that’s a lot of tax rupees saved and thx for introducing me to the fiat twin air engine. It’s simultaneous firing pistons are quiet interesting. I however believe that it is the ford tripot ecoboost engine which has got more energy conservation measures lined in it.
S Pani September 16, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Just a small correction, the FIAT TwinAir engine’s cylinder’s dont fire together. Both cylinders in effect move together, but fire 360 degrees apart.
That big an engine, if it would fire all at once would setup some serious amounts of vibrations requiring a lot of lost energy to achieve decent balancing.
S Pani September 16, 2012 at 7:19 pm
Just to add, comparing it with Ford’s EcoBoost engine is not exactly fair. The EcoBoost main party piece is the GDI, which is used by a large number of manufacturers.
FIAT’s MultiAir system on the other hand is revolutionary and has just started real world use. FIAT can implement gasoline direct injection, instead of the standard port injection in future engines, allowing it to become even more better. Implementing a multiair type valve system which can vary valve timing, valve lift as well as lift profile simultaneously takes a lot of work.
Ganesh babu September 21, 2012 at 8:48 pm
From this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcp1H5bduE8) it does look like the cyds are firing simultaneously. Manufacturers from time to time do resort to this kind of firing order in order to create a random gyroscopic precision and a unique drive character resulting thereof.
At 1st it looked like the twin air was a E-MOV engine. U know the electronic motor operated valves engine. It eliminates the need for a camshaft, rocker arms, timing belt and so on. Besides the obvious advantages of lesser frictional losses and infinitely variable timing and lift valves, the valve gears will no longer drag the engine. The best part is, the power required to drive this motor will be produced entirely by energy regenerated from brake forces! Most car manufacturers have isolated the power steering compressor from the engine’s crank drive and have gone the electric way. Ford & BMW have moved a step ahead by disconnecting the alternator too from causing drag in the engine while accelerating. Even the AC compressor is designed to disconnect when the gas peddle is floored so that the compressor is forced to engage more often during engine braking. Ford through its Ecoboost engine claims to have engineered even the oil pump to burden the engine less! If the valve gear functioning is also isolated from the engine we are talking atleast 60 KM to a liter of petrol mileage. Way ahead of the mileage offered by any hybrid car and the astronomical costs associated with these cars. Pl check me if I’m mistaken but when I did my math on the ROI of the added cost of a Hybrid civic and its 4 Km to a liter advantage over the regular Civic, it worked to 23 years payback!!!
S Pani September 21, 2012 at 10:18 pm
The video doesnt show any firing at all. It just shows the two cylinders moving together. But remember, a 4-stroke engine a single cycle lasts for 2 full revolutions ie 720degrees. In the FIAT twin air, the cylinder A fires at 180degrees into the cycle and cylinder B fires at 540degrees into the cycle. But both cylinder move together as shown in the video.
As for FIAT’s Multi-Air, no it is not a camless engine. As of now though a few camless engines have been made, none have proved feasible enough to put into production. The Multi-Air system though pretty much acheives all that a camless system could, except for the reduction in loss of energy in the form of moving parts and frictional losses. To put it simply the MultiAir system allows infinite control over how the intake valve opens, by manipulating the oil pressures inside an chamber which sits between the cam and the valve.
To understand in detail refer to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5kQKV7GdAc
Ganesh babu September 22, 2012 at 7:21 am
That was a nice video, pani. This for sharing.
Happy motoring!
Ganesh babu September 22, 2012 at 8:50 am
Oops!
Needs to be “thx for sharing”. ipad and its auto spellcheck. ehhh!
Deepak Dongre September 13, 2012 at 4:14 pm
It’ll be great if this happens…in fact even a slight premium over the Duster would still work in Ford’s favour. I guess the Ecoboost is the next best thing after the Fiat multijets.
S Pani September 13, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Well, let’s not start comparing petrol with diesels.
And even with GDI and a 3 cylinder turbo engine, fuel efficiencies of the EcoBoost can at best match the kind that FIAT’s MJD’s are giving already. Thus it still wont really make for a lower cost per km in Indian situations.
Also, the technology used also pushes up prices of the petrol cars, thus the petrol EcoSport wont be that much cheaper than the diesel variant.
As for Ford’s 1.0 Ecoboost engine as a superb technological achievement. Agreed it is a great engine, but FIAT even in the petrol engine department has its set of MultiAir/TwinAir engines which is atleast equally as good as the EcoBoost. FIAT’s TwinAir engine has one cylinder less and 125cc less, but can still give you 105hp.
Also I might add, Ford’s Ecoboost uses existing tech, ie GDI which has been around for more than a decade now. While both FIAT’s MultiJet and MultiAir technologies are revolutionary in nature.
latif October 20, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Duster is longer than ecosport which is plus point for an suv
Prabhu October 27, 2012 at 9:49 pm
In my opinion, the Ford Ecosport would win customers for its Looks, and Ride and Handling. From the photos, it is evident that the boot space is very limited and can be compared to Hyundai i-20, Swift, and Figo. This would be an ideal city car. On the other hand, Duster, although looks more sedate, would be a allrounder in the sense that it offers good ride and handling, spacious interiors, and very good boot space. This would be ideal for four or five persons with their luggage for a long trip, and the Duster no doubt would be a tad diffifult to drive within city given the wide track compared to the Ecosport.
Ashu January 18, 2013 at 5:54 pm
@ford , i cant understand that in European countries u r selling all vehicles loaded with safety features but why in India u charge for every safety feature.. what not u start the process to bring new initiative in Indian Market to provide Safety Features in every model. it ll definitely improve the customer satisfaction.
Ford Eco Sports Pricing will also play an effective step into the success. Just use the penetration pricing strategy like SAMSUNG “they have almost defeated the NOKIA” with low price high quality strategy. i bet Ford ll also beat Hyundai & Maruti if Adopted.
Praveen Lokhande February 3, 2013 at 12:44 am
I want to book eco sports if it is less than one and half lack than duster