Windshield time thoughts.

Which auto manufacturer has built the most turbocharged vehicles? My first thought was Volvo, but then I thought of Audi.  My guess is they would be pretty close to the same, as they both went turbo a few, turbo about half, turbo all, starting in the early 80's.

Have I missed someone?  Other than Kenworth et al.

Gm?  They did a lot starting a LONG time ago.

Mazda has basically hung a turbo on all of their engines at some point.

Most in terms of volume?  Most different models?

Ford sells lots of F series trucks with turbochargers-F150, diesel Super Duty.  

wawazat said:

Ford sells lots of F series trucks with turbochargers-F150, diesel Super Duty.  

I was not including trucks.   I presume diesel pickups would be #1, although I'm not sure by how much...

Streetwiseguy said:

I was not including trucks.   I presume diesel pickups would be #1, although I'm not sure by how much...

In volume?  I doubt it.  Sure, most diesels have turbos, but as a percentage of total sales they sell a lot more of the gas engined ones.

Poking around with Google, I found an article saying that in Y2K, only 1% of vehicles sold had turbochargers, whereas in 2019 it was 34%.  I doubt there were significantly more turbo vehicles in any year during the 60s, 70s, or 80s than there were in Y2K, so the vast majority of turbo vehicles sold happened in the last 10-20 years

Looking at these worldwide sales stats for 2023 (which are probably pretty similar to the previous decade or so) the biggest (by a lot) is Toyota, followed by VW, Honda and Ford.  The answer is almost certainly one of those, and given that most of Ford's sales are non-turbo trucks, and Honda has a pretty similar turbo/non-turbo ratio to Toyota only with a lot fewer sales, it's probably either Toyota or VW.  VW sells turbos on more of their cars, but Toyota sells more cars overall and I dunno how that balances out.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

 I was having trouble with your math, until I realized the disconnect.   My thought was overall, like 1983 to present, not current sales year.  

There was a time (80s/90s) when every car sold by the Chrysler Corporation was offered in a turbo variation.    

 More recently and currently,  it's probably Ford with ecoBoost through the entire lineup

It's hard to gauge by number of models because you have to figure sales and take rate.

I'd guess SAAB.

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

 I was having trouble with your math, until I realized the disconnect.   My thought was overall, like 1983 to present, not current sales year.  

They're saying the number of turbo vehicles sold pre-2000 is likely insignificant compared to the number since then. So who started first doesn't matter, the answer is likely whoever has sold the most turbos in the last two decades.

In reply to dps214 :

I would guess Ford because they more or less replaced their naturally aspirated engines with turbo engines.  After a while, every Escape sold came with either a 1.6 or 2.0 Ecoboost as the only options, and they sold a LOT of those.  When you could still even get the 2.5 it was front drive only.  Now I think they only come with 1.5l threes.

Ford sold a gazillion twin turbo F150s in 3.5 and 2.7l form.  Explorers with Ecoboosts in 2.0 and 3.5 form and I think even the 2.7. And so on and such as.

Hmm.  Is there a vehicle currently sold by Ford that doesn't have a turbo engine either standard or optional?  Genuine question.

If you exclude trucks, I would think globally, vw would be the most likely. Their 1.8t was released in the 90s, plus all their turbo diesels. Seems starting with the 1.8t, a turbo 4 of some flavor has been their primary powerplant for high  volume cars. Ford was later to the party on that.

It's probably a tossup between VW, who sold a lot of TDi models as well as turbos-4s, and Ford who sold a lot of Ecoboost engines. 

VW has a turbo on every car they have sold since they retired the 2.5L in like 2016 or so. I think there were a few V6passats out there but those are really rare. If you include the VW SUV then it's probably 80-85% because of the 3.6L option in a few like the Atlas.

So if I had to guess, It would be VW just because of the volume they have done since Y2K with the EA888 family as probably being the highest production turbo engine family (Both 1.8 and 2.0L variants)

So, what I'm gathering from this thread is that there must be a lot of used cheap turbos out their so it should be easy to find two that I could stick in my trunk hooked up to my 3 liter Volvo 6 cylinder - 1.5 liters per turbo @6000rpm.