If in the next couple of years you find yourself in the market for a new car, things will start to look a noticeably different when you peek under the hood.

Forbes has a story on efficient car engines and a slideshow on the 10 green car technologies that can dramatically improve MPG ratings for near-future cars. These include continuously clean diesel, variable transmissions like Nissan's (pictured above, under the Volt), which is already available in some of its vehicles direct-injection, by-wire vehicle control systems, and plug-in hybrids like Chevy's Volt.

Maybe a 30+ MPG baseline isn't so crazy after all.

Wikipedia has some interesting entries in its CVT "advantages" list.

• CVTs can compensate for changing vehicle speeds, allowing the engine speed to remain at its level of peak efficiency. This improves fuel economy and by effect, exhaust emissions.

• CVTs operate smoothly since there are no gear changes which cause sudden jerks.

• Very few problems have been reported with the CVT transmission, Thus it is cheaper to have.

• There are 25% less moving parts to a CVT transmission

• It is also cheaper to repair.

• The fluids do not have to be changed as often as an automatic transmission
  

Given these, the disadvantages, most of which boil down to preference, seem easily surmountable.