SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


We try Toyota’s 2013 Auris HSD XR hybrid

Almost easy to love

Sometimes it’s hard to remain objective, you know? Hybrids, generally, are difficult to love. With a few expensive exceptions, the majority are tedious to drive and slow. Most are fitted with CVT transmissions of the cheaper kind, gleefully promoted by their sellers as enabling the pinnacle of fuel-efficient motoring. Truth is, they don’t. They slip and flare, waste power and aren’t very efficient.

Toyota realised this and did something about addressing such concerns with the pair of new Auris HSD (Hybrid Synergy Drive) models released recently. The 1800 cc Atkinson-cycle engine, in combination with its battery powered electric motor, develops a total of 100 kW of power and 175 Nm of torque to propel the car to 100 km/h in 10,9 seconds and on to its maximum of 180 km/h. By comparison, the 1600 cc engine in the regular Auris fitted with CVT develops 97 kW and 160 Nm to do the sprint in 12,6 seconds, going on to about 190 km/h. 

Part of this hybrid’s performance success is thanks to modifications to the CVT’s control logic “to give a smoother, more natural feeling to vehicle acceleration, with a closer relationship between vehicle speed and engine revs,” says Toyota. It is certainly sharper than most, but as Mrs Evans used to say back in the fifth grade, “this student can do better still.” We look forward to it.

Although Toyota reckons its hybrid cars are fully usable as intercity tourers, we aren’t that sure. The hybrid formula only really works up to about 60 km/h, after which one must rely primarily on the low-output petrol engine and its still-slippery CVT. It is at its most effective in traffic jams and slow-moving city commutes with lots of stopping and starting; usually a formula for the worst fuel consumption of all.

But this is where hybridisation starts to pay for itself. The car’s electric motor does its best work while nudging forward in bumper to bumper jams and in slow moving traffic, between 30 and 50 km/h. It can be driven with a feather touch on the accelerator in circumstances like these, using no fuel at all. Stopped at traffic lights it doesn’t sip a drop either. No fuel used, means no CO2, no nitrous oxides and no blood money to the oil barons. Isn’t that what every environmentally conscious consumer dreams of?

In practice, we found it best to accelerate quickly up to your chosen speed using petrol power, then to lift off completely. This shuts off the fuel so all that’s needed is a light touch to keep the electric motor turning without internal combustion assistance. In an hour’s-worth of city driving one day, we averaged 3,8 l/100 km. Your circumstances will vary, but you get the idea.

Three alternative driving modes – EV, Eco and Power - can be selected by pressing marked buttons on the console or simply deselecting them all to default to normal mode. These vary throttle and shifting responses, but we found the easiest one to live with daily was ‘normal.’ Its most powerful econo-tool is a selectable dashboard graphic that shows whether you are using engine, battery power or simply recharging. If it can retrain leaden-footed motoring writers, use it.

Both versions, XS and XR, are equipped with almost all the toys one could want, but there isn’t enough space to list them all here. What surprises us a little is that these hybrids are fitted with sophisticated double wishbone rear suspension and 225/45 R17 Dunlop SP Sport tyres – sportier equipment than is fitted to the ordinary Auris Xr that goes better. It seems like overkill.

The numbers
Price: R323 100
Engine: 1798 cc, four-cylinder Atkinson Cycle, plus electric motor
Power: 73 kW at 5200 rpm, plus 60 kW
Torque: 142 Nm at 4000 rpm, plus 207 Nm from zero rpm
Transmission:  Stepless constant velocity, without manual override
Zero to 100 km/h and maximum speed: See text
Real life average fuel consumption: About 5,3 l/100 km
Tank: 45 litres
Luggage: 360 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km; with roadside assistance
Warranty on hybrid components: 8 years/195 000 km
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km

To see the launch report on this car and more technical detail, click here

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.


Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously.