I drove to the Drakensberg and back for under R1,000

I drove a Toyota Corolla Cross 1.8XS Hybrid from Fourways to Cathkin Park in the Drakensberg and averaged 5.1ℓ/100km on the trip there and back.

At April 2024’s inland unleaded 95 price of R21.62 per litre, the roughly 850km journey cost me just R935 in fuel, while a comparable non-hybrid vehicle would have likely cost closer to R1,300.

Toyota claims an average fuel consumption figure of 4.3ℓ/100km for the Corolla Cross with its hybrid powertrain. However, my experience is that reaching that low figure is challenging.

Moreover, the hybrid powertrain loses some of its efficiency at highway speeds. I average around 4.7ℓ/100km during my daily commute, which combines city driving with a short stretch of highway.

However, other than some city driving on the way out of Fourways and exiting Johannesburg, most of the journey to the Drakensberg is taken on the N3 at highway speeds.

This markedly increased the vehicle’s fuel consumption, but I was still impressed by its fuel efficiency.

I should note that I didn’t travel at the respective speed limits of 120km/h and 100km/h along the way.

In 120km/h zones, I set the cruise control to 115km/h; in 100km/h zones, I cruised along at around 95km/h.

I reset the car’s trip computer before setting off. Despite my fuel consumption quickly rising to over 6.0ℓ/100km early in the journey, mainly due to inconsistent speeds resulting from traffic in Johannesburg, it began to normalise when the traffic thinned.

When I reached the off-ramp for the R74 into Winterton, my fuel consumption had dropped to around 5.5ℓ/100km, which was still relatively high.

However, it dropped quickly on the quieter R74 and the R600 into Cathkin Park.

The car appeared to be in its element on the winding country roads, and this wasn’t without having to frequently slowing down and accelerate to avoid potholes and overtake slower vehicles.

Arriving at my destination, my fuel consumption showed a figure of 4.9ℓ/100km, which I was more than happy with. However, I figured the drive back would require more fuel.

While correct, the return journey wasn’t as inefficient as I expected. The Corolla Cross Hybrid settled on a figure of 5.1ℓ/100km.

The total 848km journey cost me just over R935 in fuel.

According to Toyota, the non-hybrid variation of the Toyota Corolla Cross averages 6.8ℓ/100km. However, real-world testing by Cars.co.za revealed that the figure is more likely to be between 7.0ℓ/100km and 8.0ℓ/100km.

At 7.0ℓ/100km, the same journey would have cost approximately R1,283 in fuel, while the petrol cost would have been closer to R1,500 with a fuel consumption of 8.0ℓ/100km.

However, as the naturally aspirated 1.8 Toyota Corolla Cross’s fuel consumption isn’t as impacted at highway speeds, it is more likely that its fuel consumption for the journey would have been closer to the lower figure of 7.0ℓ/100km.

Key things to consider

The journey was my first long-distance trip in a hybrid vehicle, and the experience taught me various ways to maximise my fuel efficiency with freeway driving.

Firstly, South African law enforcement allows motorists a “tolerance” of 10km/h when enforcing the country’s speed limits, and many motorists travelling long distances will take advantage of the leeway.

However, this was detrimental to fuel consumption in a hybrid vehicle. In fact, I found it best to set the cruise control 5km/h under the specified speed limit.

While I could have completed the entire journey at significantly lower speeds to achieve far lower fuel consumption, I didn’t want to spend excessive time completing it.

This leads into the second lesson: using cruise control.

With my Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid being the lower-specced XS model, it has a fairly rudimentary cruise control system that would rapidly accelerate to your set speed, significantly impacting fuel consumption.

I found it best to control the acceleration up to my desired speed myself before setting cruise control rather than simply hitting the “resume” button.

While doing so was significantly slower, I could accelerate to my desired speed using far more battery power than when I allowed the cruise control system to do it for me.

The latter generally just used the petrol engine to reach the set speed.

A final lesson was that using the air conditioner or heater still significantly impacts fuel consumption. However, using the Toyota Corolla Cross’s Eco Heat/Cool feature generally mitigated this.