Report gasoline price gouging!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Here in South Carolina, we awoke this morning to find gas prices have risen 54 cents a gallon on average. I fueled up yesterday at a cost of $3.56 a gallon. The same station this morning is charging $3.99 a gallon. The first station I tried to stop at had shut it's pumps down, presumably saving what gas it had to price gouge the consumer today.

There have been reports of some stations in nearby towns charging up to $5.21! All of this because of speculation of what Hurricane Ike "might" do to our oil refineries in Texas.

This is a classic example of price gouging. While this practice has been illegal in the United States since the beginning of time, oil companies get away with it regularly.

You can help by reporting this type of activity here.

Honeywell to provide turbo power for Ford's EcoBoost

With Ford's plans to provide more European offerings in it's lineups in the coming years, it is quickly moving to implement it's EcoBoost offerings in it's models.

EcoBoost relies on direct injection and turbocharging to develop similar power to a larger displacement engine with much improved fuel economy. The concept is actually an old one, and quite refreshing and cost effective compared to the other alternatives.

Ford has now announced that the turbos will be provided by Honeywell, the world's largest manufacturer of turbos. Offered as a premium engine option, the first EcoBoost will be a 3.5 liter direct injected twin turbo V-6. The engine will offer around 340 lb ft of torque, a minimum 30 lb ft increase over the current 4.6 liter V-8. It also represents a full 90 lb ft increase over the current 3.5.

The technology will debut in the new Lincoln MKS, which is a beautiful but underpowered entry level luxury car. Ford is proclaiming the MKS to be one of the most powerful and fuel efficient luxury cars on the market.

Ford's committment to EcoBoost will spread quickly, showing up in the Flex CUV in 2009 and the F-150 18 months later. It will eventually be spread across 23 nameplates by 2012.

Ford will continue to offer V-8 engines, and the EcoBoost offerings will fall in price below the V-8 and above standard V-6 offferings.