Turbochargers Will Keep Getting Better

The Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta are the smallest cars that Ford sells in the US, and they are available with the 1.0 and 1.6 liter turbo engines.

Ford's mid-size car and crossover Ecoboost engines are the 1.5, 1.6, and 2.0 liter turbo engines.

The Ford Fusion sedan isn't a small vehicle, however. It's curb weight is 3,431 to 3,681 lbs.

The Ford Taurus full-size sedan is available with the 2.0 and 3.5 liter turbo engines, it's curb weight is 3,917 to 4,327 lbs.

The 2.3, 2.7 and 3.5 liter turbo engines are found in Ford's full size SUVs like the Explorer and Expedition, and full size 1/2 ton trucks like the F150.

That said, many times, for the same car, the US version doesn't even offer the small engine options that the same car has in Europe. For instance, the new Mazda MX-5 has a 1.5L and a 2L versions in Europe, but in the US, Mazda only brings the two liter option, because they'd not expect the smaller engine to sell very well. Something similar happens with the Ford Focus, that in Europe goes from 1 to 2 liters, while in the US there's only a two liter version, and the question is whether you just want a naturally aspirated one, or you want a turbocharged version with more power.

So in practice, there's a bit of having only the big engines for the same cars, but the biggest difference is that in the US, people find it just dandy to buy an SUV or a pickup truck to use as a regular commuter car, while in Europe gas prices and the difficulty of parking something that big in an urban setting leads to people driving far smaller cars.

For standard passenger cars, the norm is closer to 2 liters. European cars are considered "economy" cars and have much smaller engines because they weigh less.

Many Americans spend far more time in their cars than Europeans, and we generally have more space to park them, so we prefer bigger cars. Not nearly as big as they used to be, but still bigger than the rest of the world. Bigger cars need bigger engines, and we do lots of highway driving so performance is important too.

As to the relevance of turbos in the future, they increase peak power more than anything else, so I would expect them to continue to be useful in parallel hybrid configurations (if it enables a smaller ICE, it's probably a win).

Virtually all hybrids already do that…

Sure they increase peak HP, but they also increase exhaust backpressure.

Seems like the main achievement of turbos is cheaper/smaller engines.

Often people with already basic knowledge of thermodynamics can spot the large inefficiency sources in many of the currently common processes. This stuff has been known since the 1800s.

It's just that the implementation has been too expensive (payoff is too slow), or politically inconvenient (the technology is in another department/company). There might be some reliability or emissions or noise issues etc...

The world is full of massive technical inefficiencies and thus, great business opportunities.

You can look at the car as an industrial process as well. Intercoolers, capacitor energy recovery, heat pumps for heating (and not just for air conditioning). Most of the mechanical technology is 100+ years old. The turbocharger was patented in 1905. With batteries and capacitors and control electronics there's some fairly new stuff.

You could for example skip the piston engine and instead have just a turbine and then a bottoming engine with CO2 cycle recovering the waste heat. Ships run with turbocharged diesel engines, but GE is championing precisely this turbine + bottoming for them. So why not cars? There are some big operational differences of course (heating the working fluid in an external combustion engine takes a while). But there could be some big benefits too, like if you don't have reciprocating machinery at all, the noise is different and there's no vibration.

Full EVs are a drop in the bucket right now. The Model 3 isn't even released, probably won't be widely available for another couple years, will likely cost around $50K comparably equipped, and even then Tesla likely couldn't make enough to make a dent in the overall market.

The Leaf is a great car (IMO), but even in a major metro (DFW) spot-charging is really impractical. There are NO DC quick-chargers in North or North East Dallas last I looked, and you at minimum have to have a subscription just to have the option to pay to use them. There's a reasonable number of Blink Network chargers around, but no one who's actually used those would suggest they're a viable way to maintain a charge without major compromises. Using a Leaf to commute to the suburbs is an experience fraught with stress as well.

Maybe in a couple years the Leaf will have kicked the range-anxiety issue to the curb. And the Chevy Beat looks very promising. 2 cars in the range of the average new car purchase price does not make for domination though.

My prediction is that it's realistically going to be at least 3 car generations before that has a chance of happening, and most manufacturers haven't even released a full EV yet. That's a good 15 to 20 years as a best case scenario. That doesn't address the Truck and family SUV market either. These things are made for hauling. They're going to suck down a lot more power. "Work Trucks" aren't going to convert for much longer Though I think there's a good chance many will go hybrid in ~10 years. There's got to be a ton of utility in a series-hybrid truck for towing, site power, etc.

Just my 2c. I've actually owned a Leaf. I think EVs are great. A lot more so than people even realize. Instant torque and acceleration response makes them really fun to drive. That doesn't mean I think they'll somehow become dominant in the same timespan that it took Nissan to come out with a massively compromised diesel truck nobody is going to buy. That's beyond optimistic IMO.

[NB I have had cars with much bigger engines in the past (e.g. 4.4 BMW) and I honestly don't miss them].