There are people who see the rising corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards -- 54.5 miles per gallon (23.2 kilometers per liter) by 2025 -- as bad news. They bemoan the death of the big engines, the V-8s that delivered lots of power and sucked up a lot of gas. They say that driving won't be fun anymore, that we'll all be forced to buy dull cars with high fuel economy scores. Booooring, these people say.

Then there are others who have known the CAFE standards would have to rise, given the price of oil, U.S. dependency on foreign oil and the effects of engine emissions on climate change. They saw the higher fuel economy requirements as a challenge, and they began to work on new technologies that would be good for the planet, good for our wallets and still cool. These people are called engineers.

Here are five engine technologies available today or in the very near future, at a variety of price points. These examples -- and there are more like them being invented every day -- promise that the future of driving will still be fun, whether it's in a tiny city car with a direct-injected engine or a supercar with a "push to pass" hybrid booster button.

One way to improve performance and fuel economy is to increase the compression ratio inside the engine. The compression ratio refers to the amount of fuel and air squeezed into the combustion chamber. When this ratio is higher, it uses fuel more efficiently.

The problem with higher compression ratios is usually a knocking sound in the engine, which occurs when temperature and pressure are too high in the chamber and the air and fuel mixture ignites too early.

Most of the engines on the road today mix the fuel and air before introducing them to the combustion chamber. In a direct-injected engine, highly pressurized fuel is squirted directly into the combustion chamber at the top of the piston's stroke, near the spark plug.

Since this creates quite a bit of pressure in the combustion chamber, direct injection can cause knocking, too, just like higher compression ratios. Ford Motor Company has solved this problem by combining direct injection with turbo charging, which uses exhaust gases to boost performance.

By bringing these two proven technologies together, Ford has built engines that are more powerful than their predecessors, even though they're smaller and use less fuel. Ford calls these engines EcoBoost.

The 2011 Ford F-Series shows how EcoBoost keeps driving from being dull. You could buy the Super Duty with its optional 6.8-liter V-10 with 362 horsepower and 457 lb-ft of torque -- plenty for work or play. Or you could buy the F-150 with the EcoBoost 3.5-liter engine with 365 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque -- and that's in a smaller, lighter truck. That kind of horsepower per pound ratio is going to deliver lots of fun with fewer fill-ups.