Bummer about the deer & the car!
I agree, the CVT in the Versa Note is very interesting. It's the same unit used in the Mitsubishi Mirage (and Chevy Spark), and it's remarkable how diligently it strives for fuel-efficient, low RPM cruising. [
See http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...age-34352.html ]
It also has a "idle neutral" feature (shifts internally to N when you stop to save a tiny amount of fuel).
I haven't tried the Nissan implementation of the trans, and I have wondered if they programmed it to be as "aggressively economical" as Mitsu's approach.