High noon on the highway

The temperature has soared to a sticky 40 deg and a willy-willy is kicking up a menacing dust spiral right beside us. The road ahead disappears into a mirage, only the faint shimmering of what passes for trees indicates where the highway is heading.

Heavy skid marks and hawks circling overhead pinpoint today's fresh road kill - yet another cow - which has been hit the night before. Already the carcass in the ditch is withering in the heat. Beside it termite mounds are rising through a rusting vehicle abandoned in the bush.

This is a punishing environment but the perfect for Hyundai. They are out to prove its new Santa Fe all-wheel drive wagon has clean, green credentials - even in this Outback oven.

The Koreans launched the revamped seven-seat Santa Fe in Adelaide last night. But we have already been testing it this week, competing as a guest driver in the two-car Hyundai team in the Global Green Challenge, an endurance rally for production or near production vehicles to prove their fuel efficiency.

The task: drive 3000km from Darwin to Adelaide using the least amount of fuel possible; with each day's stage having a maximum completion time, forcing entries not to dawdle too slowly or they will be penalised. It's a mind game of measuring speed against time for maximum efficiency. The vehicle which returns to best fuel efficiency gain over its official consumption rating wins.

We have been cutting it close - 11 minutes to spare at the stage finish on day one, just one minute on day two after nine hours on the road and two minutes on day three. That's too close for comfort.

And as for the Santa Fe? It's remarkable for just how well it's been running, both team cars using less than 5.4l/100km, which is well under the official figure of 6.7l/100km - a figure set in the laboratory and not in the real world.

We've been travelling at a snail's pace - between 70 and 80km/h on the 130km/h limited highway and we have been doing it with the air conditioning switched off. What's even more remarkable is that we have been running the wagon, as an experiment, on cruise control, which has penalised us about 0.2l/100km on our sister team entry. It's a reflection of just how smart Hyundai's electronics have become.

While most drivers wouldn't tackle long distance journeys at such slow speeds or without using cooling air conditioning, the Global Green rally has proved that you can save money by simply reducing speed and driving smoothly. At 90km/h the Santa Fe was still achieving 6l/100km. That's fuel saved, less carbon dioxide emissions and more money in your wallet. Even careful driving in the city, changing to top gear as soon as possible and avoiding heavy braking reaps rewards. We've proved that.