The most fuel-efficient car under R300,000 in South Africa

The most fuel-efficient cars on sale in South Africa for less than R300,000 are the Suzuki Celerio and its rebadged twin, the Toyota Vitz.

These cars achieve an average fuel consumption of less than 5.0l/100km, making them well-suited to navigate the current motoring landscape where petrol prices have skyrocketed past R30 per litre.

While technically two different models, the Celerio and the Vitz are built on the same platform and share an engine, and are functionally identical in terms of performance.

Both cars are an ideal choice if you are looking for something that is relatively easy on your wallet, both at the dealership and the petrol station, as they are among the cheapest cars in South Africa.

The Vitz is a rebadged version of the Celerio, born out of Toyota’s ongoing global partnership with Suzuki to reduce the cost of researching and developing new cars.

The two models are small hatchbacks built at Maruti Suzuki’s factory in India, which are imported to South Africa to serve as entry-level cars.

The Vitz has a starting price of R182,400, while the Celerio is slightly more expensive at R188,900, making them some of the last remaining cars to cost less than R200,000 in South Africa.

They are equipped with a 1.0-litre naturally aspirated engine that produces a modest 49kW and 89Nm.

The base versions are fitted with a five-speed manual gearbox, which sends power to the front wheels.

As a result, the small cars achieve a frugal fuel consumption of just 4.4l/100km. However, if you want to maximise your fuel economy, you can pick up the automatic version.

The automatic Vitz and Celerio use a five-speed automated-manual transmission (AMT), which lowers the fuel usage to 4.2l/100km.

This is a very small difference in the grand scheme of things, though, and is probably not worth paying R225,900 for the Celerio AMT or R229,400 for the Vitz AMT if fuel-savings are your only concern.

For a more practical sense of their efficiency, the Indian-made cars have a small 32-litre petrol tank, which still manages to provide a range of 727km.

As of October 2026, motorists are paying R30.25 per litre for petrol at inland rates, which means it costs R968 to fill up the tank.

That works out to an impressive cost of just R1.33 per kilometre at the current fuel price, which is better than the vast majority of cars on the road.

Some hybrid cars do claim to offer better efficiency, but these have a substantially higher upfront cost, making the Vitz and Celerio a more realistic option for the average car buyer in South Africa.