"To me, the last 15 years have been car manufacturers figuring out that with the right kind of engineering, you can get rid of turbo lag, and if you don't have

"To me, the last 15 years have been car manufacturers figuring out that with the right kind of engineering, you can get rid of turbo lag, and if you don't have lag or reliability problems, turbos make everything better. Smaller, faster, more fuel-efficient. My dad's sedan has a twin turbo these days. It gets 35 mpg." I think this is a mistaken interpretation of what is going on. What I believe is happening is that ever-increasing emissions and fleet efficiency requirements have seriously clamped down on what carmakers can produce, with technology and feature creep continuing to add weight to the car. That is why we see cars going to smaller and smaller engines (basically the entire Volvo fleet is 4 cylinder now) with increased reliance on turbo/super charging to achieve necessary horsepower. But these things are not equal - smaller engines vibrate more, they are louder, they are most likely inline and therefore have badly balanced "secondary forces" and they are going to have trouble achieving displacement larger than 2.5L. I have no skin in this game since I don't care at all about ICE or ICE car culture and I want to transition to fully electric vehicles ASAP. But never forget, kids: there is no replacement for displacement.