Next year Ford will offer a new Focus compact car in Europe, with a one-litre, three-cylinder engine that performs as well as the 1.6 litre, four-cylinder engine it replaces, yet uses about 20% less fuel.

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The Lexus' whirligig is familiar from the Toyota Camry and Avalon hybrids: a lean-burning Atkinson-cycle, 2.5-liter in-line four-cylinder (156 hp) coupled with two electric motors, one a 141-hp traction motor, the other a starter-generator.

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Third, the new U.S.-spec Passat can be had with a choice of three and only three engines, one of which, the base 2.5-liter in-line five-cylinder, is a hunk of lumber pulled from the ribs of an ancient Norse longboat.

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