Ford Motor Company EcoBoost Comes Alive

By: Bill Waters
10/02/2009 03:14 PM ET

Ford Motor Company is continuing their commitment to excellence. Ford has announced that their new EcoBoost gasoline direct-injection turbo charged engine technology adds 125 patents and patent applications to Ford’s current roster of active patents. According to a 2008 study by the world’s leading patent analyst (The Patent Board), found that Ford outperformed all other automakers in the quality and significance of its technology patents.

New EcoBoost gasoline direct-injection turbo charged engine technology adds 125 patents and patent applications to Ford’s 4,618 active and thousands of pending U.S. patents. Leading patent analyst The Patent Board ranks Ford above all other automakers for the quality and significance of its technology patents. EcoBoost patents involve powertrain management and the proprietary methods Ford uses to eliminate turbo lag and create a seamless, powerful driving experience.

Ford’s new high-performance, fuel-saving EcoBoost technology is making waves in the engineering community, with the 3.5-liter version of the engine contributing 125 new patents and patent applications. The additions build on Ford Motor Company’s current roster of 4,618 active U.S. patents, with thousands more patent applications pending.

EcoBoost powertrain management innovations make up the bulk of the technology’s patents and patent applications. However, only those advancements that contribute to cutting-edge engineering make the leap from implementation to complete invention.

“We focus on getting high-quality patents that have the best breakthrough potential for the company,” says Bill Coughlin, president and CEO of Ford Global Technologies, a wholly owned Ford subsidiary responsible for managing Ford’s intellectual property worldwide.

The strategy is paying off: A 2008 study by the world’s leading patent analyst, The Patent Board , found Ford outperformed all other automakers in the quality and significance of its technology patents.

“Ford’s patented technologies are closer to the cutting edge than its competitors,” says Christine Wren, director of business development for The Patent Board, which tracks and analyzes patents across 17 industries globally.

The recently introduced 2010 Ford Fusion and Fusion Hybrid, which is America’s most fuel-efficient midsize sedan, have 119 patents to date and more are pending. Patenting is a global activity at Ford, with experts in the United States, Europe, India and China sharing common processes and reporting through Ford Global Technologies.

The Ford powertrain management strategy uses hundreds of thousands of lines of computer code and related parameters that are adjusted to optimizing the engine and transmission operation. It’s these processes that largely make up the EcoBoost patent contribution and make Ford’s use of direct injection and turbo charging of its engines like no other automaker in the world.

“The secret to Ford’s EcoBoost system isn’t just the hardware — the key is in the Ford control system,” said Brett Hinds, Ford Advanced Engine Design and Development manager. “Our engineers have the right ‘recipes’ to integrate the various systems like engine, transmission and fuel management, resulting in a seamless, exhilarating driving experience.”

To extract the level of power and efficiency achieved in an engine like the Ford Motor Company EcoBoost V-6, a remarkable level of precision is required. One example is the amount of control engineers maintain over the fuel injection system. The powertrain management strategy uses 10,066 adjustable parameters and each injector releases 10.4 milligrams of fuel. This is about 1/25,000 the volume of a can of soda, or 0.2 drops of fuel.