More mileage testing

My gas mileage experiment continues. I had to fill up this morning and amazing the Sunfire took more than it ever has, 13.1 gallons. Total miles was 332.2 for 25 miles per gallon this time. That was pretty much all city style driving. I did take I-35 for a short trip from 152 to the hospital exit just to see what RPM I would run at 65 and 70 mph. The RPM were over 2500 to 3000. Yet drop to 55 and RPM is only about 1800. Obviously this car was meant to run at 55 even though it is a 2000 model. I have come to the conclusion that car makers are screwing us on the gearing of their vehicles. I should be able to cruise along at 70 mph with the RPM at 1500. I know there are vehicles out there now with 7 speed automatics and what not, but they are usually mated to a gas guzzling V-8. Plus they don't do much for saving gas. It used to be that in a 4 speed, the 4th gear was an overdrive gear, usually about .87 ratio. Now, in this Mercedes 7 speed, gears 6 and 7 are over drive. One at .82 and the other at .73. I don't think that is good enough. To me I think they are holding back. Give us a .5 ratio final gear for cruising and it doesn't have to be a 8 or 9 speed gear box that they are talking about putting out now. I know, they put more accelerating gears in there so you don't use so much RPM when you floor it, the thing is you don't have too.

So how about this for a solution. A hybrid transmission. No not that type of hybrid with mechanical and electric motors, no I mean a conventional one mated with a CVT. CVTs are a great idea, I had the idea years before they actually came on market (although they were certainly already being developed). I usually have great ideas for something only to see it on the market a year later. Anyway, this transmission would have 3 or 4 accelerating gears so that high torque motors could use it too (currently a high torque motor will tear apart a CVT). The final "gear" would be a CVG (continuously variable gear) allowing for a range of cruising speeds at a certain RPM. I think this would be more beneficial than a 10 speed transmission.

*NOTE: I don't have a patent on this and don't plan getting one, there might already be one, but I haven't checked. I don't believe patents should be approved without a working prototype being created. An idea patent would be ok, but in a very limited time frame, say a year for them to build the prototype. I really dislike people that sit on patents waiting for someone else to build something and then suing the person that actually worked to bring the product to life.