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Very cool info thank you. I had the opportunity to drive my 2001 Yaris 1500 automatic (called Echo in Australia) on the same 500km trip twice this year. The first time for a week with my 80 year old mum & my wife, the second time with just my wife and I. Aside from ~60kg less (no mum, but more of other things) in the car on the second trip everything else was the same (tyre pressure 35psi, fuel grade 98, molybond in the oil). Of course I drove a lot more conservatively with a fragile old lady in the car on the first trip, and I used the cruise control as much as possible. The result was L/100Km = 5.44 (odometer 157,971km at start).
The second trip was on a weekend, so I drove at the speed limit and accelerated hard in situations such as mountain climbs, & passing trucks, and I used the cruise control less often. Surprisingly, L/100Km = 5.64 on the second trip (odometer 161,328km at start). If you had told me this was going to happen I would not have believed you. No one was more surprised than me after I entered the numbers in my spreadsheet. On both occasions I bought fuel in the same garages, and I do my best to use the same pump when I fill up (pumps vary). Clearly, the variable valve inlet and engine management, even on my old car, works well at higher engine revs. Strike for modern engine management systems.
I've also noticed that my wife's 2005 Yaris auto (odometer 65,000km) is very efficient in peak hour traffic (7.12 L/100km over 10,000km). She knows nothing about car engines or transmission so this is a good test of how a car would normally behave with the aircon on and being driven hard in traffic.
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