Turbocharging, direct injection, and variable valve timing: the new holy grail of low emissions and high fuel economy, small displacement and big performance.
The turbocharger was once such an exotic piece of technology that entire coffee-table books featured the cars that boasted their boost with big "Turbo" badges smeared across every body panel. These were, however, very thin books. That's because turbos, for the bulk of their fifty-year existence in cars, were expensive, finicky devices that were capable of thrilling drivers but seemingly just as often failed, leaving those same drivers stranded on the side of the road. Boosted engines were volatile, barely controllable appendages that were hard to rouse, initially producing no power at all -- and then way more than the driver ever asked for. A turbo, as enthusiasts were promised way back with the first production applications in Corvairs and Oldsmobiles, could produce the power of a big engine with the fuel consumption of a little one. The latter remained an empty promise, and what extra power the turbo made was bad power. It came at the expense of reliability, fuel economy, and drivability, relegating turbocharged engines to the fringes of the market.
Photo Gallery: 2012 Technology of the Year: The Turbo Tech Trifecta
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