DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
As big V8-powered cars like the Dodge Charger and Challenger approach the end of their lives as production cars, an altogether different sort of gasoline engine has become increasingly common on American roads: the three-cylinder.
To many Americans — except ardent car geeks — the number of cylinders in an engine may be of little concern. But three is an odd number in more ways than one.
We're used to small engines having four cylinders, and the idea of an engine having only three can raise concerns about whether it provides adequate power or might be noisy and rough-running. If Americans have experience with three-cylinder engines, it would probably have been in Europe where the engines are fairly common in tiny "city cars" used for basic, around-town transportation.
Here in America, we mostly buy SUVs, and we demand the power to move our bulkier vehicles on wide open highways at high speeds.
Ten years ago, only one model widely sold in America had a three-cylinder engine and that was the Smart ForTwo, precisely that sort of tiny European car that looks like it wouldn't require much power at all to get going. Now, for the 2023 model year, there are ten different models available in the United States with three-cylinder engines, according to Edmunds.com.
And these are not tiny niche products.
There are three Minis (the Clubman plus the basic convertible and hardtop Mini models), the Mitsubishi Mirage, Ford Escape, Ford Bronco Sport, Chevrolet Trailblazer, Buick Encore GX, Nissan Rogue and the Toyota GR Corolla. All of these are at least offered with three-cylinder engines, if not available only with that engine.
The Toyota GR Corolla has a loud and powerful 3-cylinder engine. (Toyota)
Dan Hommes, an engineer for General Motors, sometimes tells people driving Trailblazer and Encore GX SUVs that he helped develop the engine in their vehicle. Then, if he doesn't get the sense it might upset them (despite having driven it some people might still feel the vehicle was somehow diminished) he tells them that it has only three cylinders.
"In general, the response is actual surprise," he said. "It's 'Wow! I had no idea!'"
Ideally, owners should detect no difference from the more common four-cylinder engine they are probably used to. The increasing use of 3-cylinders is part of a general auto industry trend toward "downsizing and boosting" as fuel economy and emissions regulations become more stringent.
Vehicles that would have once have been powered by eight-cylinder engines now have turbocharged six-cylinder engines, instead. The Ford Mustang still comes with a big V8 for hard-core enthusiasts, but the alternative choice isn't a V6 any longer, but a 315-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder.
Now turbocharged 3-cylinder engines are providing the same sort of downsized alternative for vehicles that once would have had four-cylinders. They save gas compared compared to a four-cylinder engine because they're smaller and lighter and, with fewer moving parts, they have to overcome less of their own internal friction.
Improvements in engine technology have made them both more powerful and smoother-running — or at least smoother-feeling — than they would once have been.
In fact, the all-wheel-drive Toyota GR Corolla, which has a 300-horsepower three-cylinder, is marketed as a performance model for enthusiasts. While it's not particularly quiet or smooth, since that's not a priority for the intended customer, the engine is powerful, fast-revving and a lot of fun, especially paired with a manual transmission, which is the only way the GR Corolla comes.
Among the benefits of a three-cylinder engine in this case, said Naoyuki Sakamoto, Toyota's lead engineer for the GR Corolla, is that each cylinder can be bigger. In a four-cylinder engine of the same size each cylinder would, of course, have to be smaller.
Gasoline engines work by moving air in and out very rapidly, and having bigger cylinders means the engine can have larger intake and exhaust valves, easing the movement of air and increasing power.
In cars like the Nissan Rogue, with its 201 horsepower three-cylinder, the engine is quiet and capable, but it's also technologically complex. Besides turbocharging and a sophisticated fuel injection system, it also has what Nissan calls "variable compression" that allows the engine to draw in more or less air depending on power needs.
These small power plants work best in vehicles that were designed specifically for them, said GM's Hommes. The challenge is simply that there are fewer "explosions" for every rotation of the engine — three, instead of four in a four-cylinder engine or six in a six-cylinder — and they each must be stronger to produce similar power.
That results in strong low-frequency vibrations that can be harder to mask in a vehicle. The engines themselves have extra moving parts just to cancel out some of these vibrations, but it's helpful, he said, if the entire vehicle is also designed to dampen them.
This 3-cylinder trend might not continue much longer, said Gabriel Shenhar, associate director of Consumer Reports' auto test program. Electric cars are providing big benefits for automakers trying to reach their required Corporate Average Fuel Economy targets, so the trouble and expense of developing smaller engines might not be worth it much longer, he said.
GM currently offers two different three-cylinder engines and, Hommes said, plans to continue selling them even as GM moves toward selling nothing but electric passenger vehicles by 2035.
"We've committed to that solution in the marketplace for [fuel economy] reasons and we're planning to continue with it," he said.
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Body Shop Canada is exploring a sale as it struggles to get its hands on enough inventory to keep up with "robust" sales after announcing it would file for creditor protection and close 33 stores.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
The U.S.’s Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a video that appears to show unauthorized personnel in the cockpit of a charted Colorado Rockies flight to Toronto.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.