Turbocharging motors has been around for quite some time, and has spanned across many different applications. From a small four-cylinder motor, all the way to the airplanes and even diesel motors. They can be seen in just about every application and the number is growing for vehicles equipped with them.

But why is that? Why are more and more manufactures adding turbos under the hood? The answer is pretty straight-forward. Generally speaking, there is a trade-off between power and fuel economy.

Usually you can only pick one, or a balance of the two. However turbochargers are letting people get more power, while retaining fuel economy. This gives consumers exactly what they want, and they seem to be responding extremely well.

In fact, according to Autoblog, the amount of cars equipped with turbochargers should double over the next five years. That’s a lot of turbo’s in a short amount of time. They are in about 20% of the cars on the road right now, and would jump to 40% by 2019. If the trend continues, by 2030 there might not be any non-turbo models available. Most of this is a result of the success of turbocharged applications in Europe. China is expected to see the largest jump, with over 13 million cars sporting a spool.

For the United States, we are excited to see what the possibilities are. We have seen LS engines with 1000+ horsepower driven on the street with a turbo. Could the next Corvette have 1,000 horsepower and still knock out 30 miles per gallon? One can only hope. Either way, it’s interesting to watch the change, and its a good change for once.