Last year I published a list of cars with direct injection, looks like Winding Road beat me to it and published a an updated list. I love direct injection engines because it’s one of those technologies that defy the fuel economy/horsepower tradeoff. Direct injection engines have better fuel economy and higher performance.

Their complete list is on their website and it’s amazing how large this list is. Just a few years ago, only Audi produced cars with this technology, now almost every brand is represented.

A lot of car consumers buy cars with technologies known for a brand name rather than knowing what or how it actually benefits them as an owner – VTEC and DOHC are some of the more well known engine technologies that are “marketed” rather than explained.

One of the newest engine technologies should be marketed a lot heavier than it is. It’s because it provides the impossible: providing more engine power but at the same time improving fuel economy. Direct Fuel Injection is a technology borrowed from Diesels and applied to normal gasoline engines. Bascially, Direct Fuel Injection uses special injectors to spray pressurized gasoline directly into the combustion chamber of the engine. DFI engines can tightly control this fuel spray in order to maximize the usage of the fuel – for better performance or economy, or both!

Direct Fuel Injection is branded differently by each car manufacturer. Audi/VW popularized thier “FSI” variant through their racing efforts at Le Mans and now have the most models of cars that use direct injection. Other North American cars that use this fantastic new technology are listed below (Europe has more models that use DFI):

Audi/VW Fuel Straight Injection (FSI)
Audi A3 2.0TFSI
Audi A4 2.0TFSI
Audi RS4 V8 FSI
Audi R8 V8 FSI
VW GLI
VW GTI
VW Passat 2.0T
VW Passat VR6
VW Touareg 2 V8 FSI R

BMW High Precision Injection (HPI)
BMW 135i
BMW 335i
BMW 535i
Mini Cooper S

Ford EcoBoost
Lincoln MKS

GM Spark Ignition Direct Injection
Solstice GXP
Saturn Sky Red Line
Cadillac CTS V6
Cadillac STS V6
Chevy HHR SS
Chevrolet Cobalt SS

Mazda Direct Injection Spark Ignition (DISI)
Mazdaspeed 3
Mazdaspeed 6
CX-7

Porsche Direct Fuel Injection
Cayenne
Carrera (Carrera S, 4, 4S, Targa 4 and Targa 4S)

Updated August 1, 2008