Ten best selling passenger cars in April in South Africa are also among the most fuel efficient petrol-powered vehicles available on the local market.

As far as South African consumers are concerned, there is only one direction that petrol prices take. Up. Yes, every now and then we get a respite in the form of a puny price drop, but only to be hit on the head (pardon, on our car’s petrol tank) with a vengeance in the shape of a gigantic price hike.

That is why more and more people see petrol consumption as the most important criterion when buying a car.

Drive South Africa recently sent us their report listing fuel consumption of the top ten best-selling new passenger cars in the local market. Unsurprisingly, practically all of them fared well on the fuel efficiency front.

The “best selling” figures are for the month of April, as provided by NAAMSA (National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa). The stats exclude all Hyundai and Kia models, because these manufacturers do not submit sales figures. Also, Mercedes-Benz South Africa only submits aggregated new vehicle sales data.

The fuel consumption figures are manufacturers’, calculated by combining highway and city fuel consumption of a new car over 100 kilometres.

Do note that some reviewers claim that “real life” petrol consumption figures can be 10% to 25% higher than manufacturers’ (see our post On fuel consumption).

It is also worth reiterating that practically all experts agree that how you drive greatly affects the petrol consumption of your car. In that name, take note of our article entitled 15 ways to save on petrol.

With these notes and qualifications out of the way, let’s see which 10 best-selling petrol-powered cars fared as the most fuel-efficient in the Drive South Africa report.

Based on the fuel prices valid on 6 May 2015, the cheapest car to “feed” is number 5 from the list above, the Ford Fiesta TDCi Trend/Ambiente: give it R40.46 (or R39.28 if you live in coastal areas) worth of diesel… and it will run for 100 kilometres!

If you want to see how much you spend on the petrol for your car, go to the South African fuel cost calculator. It even has a nifty feature that tells you how much more (or less) you are spending on fuel in comparison with the previous month.

Also see: bidorbuy article The 10 most fuel efficient cars in South Africa.