How come we can’t just add X amount of gears to a transmission and have one of the most efficient cars ever?
In: 95
Gears don’t increase the power of the car. To drive at a given speed you need a given power, the engine has to provide that power no matter what gear you are in. In fact, with a transmission it has to provide a bit more power because of friction in the transmission.
Combustion engines are inefficient when they run very slow (few, slow combustion cycles) and when they run very fast (large losses from all the moving parts). They have a range where their efficiency is the best. Gears are used to keep the engine closer to that range for a large range of car speeds. With something like 5 gears you are already close to the maximum across the whole relevant speed range. Going to 10 gears is a very small improvement, going to 20 would be an even smaller improvement.
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