When fuel prices seem to be getting higher every month and petrol stations run out of fuel, the Toyota Corolla Cross GR-S HEV is a godsend. I realised this during a recent trip to the Kruger National Park.
Smooth and easy drive
Driving on the highway, the car was smooth. The suspension was soft and the steering felt easy. The slight issue comes if you need to climb a steep hill or accelerate quickly. The car felt sluggish here and when you put your foot flat, the electrified 1.8-litre engine responded with a whine.
With the GR-S badge, signifying that it’s part of Toyota’s Gazoo Racing, you would think the car would have a bit more oomph. Having said that, the selling point for the car is its fuel efficiency, not power. I just expected a bit more from a car with the GR-S badge, sport pedals, leather-wrapped steering wheel, red seatbelts and red stitching.
Otherwise, the car has everything you need for a long trip. It felt spacious and had plenty of safety features, including a blind-spot monitor, park distance control and rain-sensor wipers.
The Android Auto also made the trip more pleasant when we were driving through the bleak coal-mining areas of Mpumalanga or had to stop with dozens of trucks when the route was restricted to one lane in Schoemanskloof.
Fuel consumption
Now, let’s get to the most impressive feature of this hybrid crossover: its extremely light fuel consumption. This was a bonus because of the recent fuel price increases, but became even more crucial when we stopped at the first major fuel station and were told it had run out of petrol.
I then started paying more attention to how I was driving to monitor how much fuel we were using (and to try ensure the car’s battery was charging). Unfortunately, because we were going along at highway speeds, we could not use the car’s “EV only” mode.
Toyota claims the consumption of the Corolla Cross GR-S is as low as 4.3 litres per 100km. Driving on the open road at 120km/h, we ranged between an impressive 5.6 and 6 litres per 100km.
Not only did this save us money at the pumps, but it also eased our nerves when we found dry pumps at fuel stations.
The next time I was grateful to be in the Corolla Cross was when we were leaving the Kruger Park. We decided to fill up with petrol at the Skukuza camp, which was near the gate. But there was no fuel there either.
Corolla Cross can run on fumes
While another distressed motorist stood there with an empty Jerry can, I was confident that both the fuel efficiency and the stored battery power would give us a stress-free 50km trip to the nearest petrol station in Hazyview.
Inside the Kruger Park, with its speed limit of 50km/h, was where the car’s fuel efficiency was most apparent. As we cruised along the roads, it sometimes got as low as 3.2L/100km.
The silence of the engine was another favourable aspect of the hybrid inside the park. Usually, when you stop at sightings, you’re encouraged to switch your engine off so you don’t ruin the sounds of nature and disturb the animals. This wasn’t necessary with the Corolla Cross.
Corolla Cross stands up to elephant
The quiet engine and 360-degree camera also saved us from potential disaster when we encountered the biggest elephant I’ve ever seen, with long tusks that were proportional to its extra-large frame. The elephant, agitated by idiotic tourists in two bakkies who were reversing towards it, decided to turn around and walk towards us. We decided to move onto a dirt road so we weren’t on the tar road when the elephant passed.
After the recent flooding, the dirt roads in the Kruger Park are anything but smooth, yet the car handled them with ease. This was necessary as we discovered that the angry elephant had chased another car onto the dirt road.
Thinking the elephant would have passed by this point, we had turned around and were making our way back to the tar road. This meant we now had to reverse on the bumpy road at speed.
Reverse camera to the rescue
Luckily, the screen on the dashboard helped my wife reverse with ease (and slight panic) after she had decided she would like to take the wheel on the park’s quiet roads. This was where the quiet engine was really appreciated. After we reversed into a neat line in a clearing with three other cars, the large animal turned to face us, shook its gigantic head and decided to take the peaceful route and moved off into the bush.
“It’s typical that the first time I had to reverse the car was when an elephant was charging towards me,” my wife said to me later while we were in the camp, still in disbelief that we escaped the encounter unharmed.
Luckily that was the only close call we had in the car. The rest of the trip in the Toyota Corolla Cross GR-S HEV was serene.
