People are sacrificing food and jobs while others are taking out KiwiSaver hardship grants due to high fuel costs, as a survey finds just five Tauranga gas stations selling petrol for less than $3 a litre.
It comes after the Government decided to reduce fuel excise duties and road user charges by 25c a litre each for three months in March.
On Wednesday morning, five out of 40 petrol stations in Tauranga charged less than $3 per litre for 91 Octane, according to the fuel price tracking app Gaspy.
Waitomo Hewletts Rd had the cheapest fuel at $2.81 per litre while the most expensive was BP Connect Te Puna at $3.05 per litre.
Tauranga Cars owner Jono Allen said there had been a spike in electric and hybrid vehicle interest and sales after petrol prices hit $3 per litre earlier this year.
In the last month, 30 per cent of his sales were for electric and hybrid vehicles compared to 10 per cent last year.
Those that were on the fence were buying them now and those that appeared to be against them were considering the vehicles as options. Coinciding this, demand for petrol-run cars had fallen, he said.
However, the overall volume of vehicles he had sold had fallen "significantly" in the last year, which he believed came down to disposable income.
"With people getting $180 petrol bills, they're starting to think they need to do something."
He said not enough thought had been put into safe vehicles for low-income households who could not afford the vehicles that put out fewer emissions.
The Clean Car Discount charges fees on imported cars of up to $5175, money which is then used to subsidise discounts of up to $8625 for people buying EVs, hybrids and other low-polluting cars.
In his opinion, Allen didn't believe the scheme would work because many of the high-emission cars on the road were owned by families who were not able to replace them.
He said those earning $60,000-a-year "slogging their guts out" couldn't afford the cleaner cars but they were the ones subsiding the modern vehicles for the wealthy.
In Budget 2022 the Government put half a billion dollars to help low-income families shift to electric and hybrid vehicles.
Rotorua's Hem Chand has been a taxi driver for the past decade but he might have another job by the end of the year if the cost of fuel continued to rise.
He said drivers were "feeling the pinch", with a double-whammy of high petrol prices and no tourists, who were the main customers.
His company had not increased the price of fares recently, which meant his profits were lower.
Chand had a mortgage, he was the breadwinner in the family, and he said being paid less alongside the rising interest rates and the cost of living was difficult.
"It's very hard to survive."
He would wait until September to gauge how many tourists came to the city when the borders opened and said he would leave the taxi profession if nothing improved.
Transporting New Zealand chief executive Nick Leggett said fuel used to make up around 15 per cent of costs, which would have risen "quite significantly" in recent months.
This was "tough" and needed to be passed on to customers. He expected to see "volatility" in the fuel market in September when the Government reductions are lifted, he said.
Rising fuel costs had eaten into the margins of many road transport companies, he said.
This was despite the "welcomed" Government reduction on road user charges on diesel, which equated to about a 36 per cent discount on road user charges.
There were also labour cost pressures in an inflationary environment, he said.
While heavy truck drivers have had "significant" wage increases in recent years, Transporting NZ's advice to the industry was to look after their staff as "nobody can afford to lose drivers".
Tauranga Budget Advisory Services manager Shirley McCombe said some people couldn't get to medical appointments, visit family or get to school with the rising cost of fuel.
She was worried about how the problem would worsen when the Government-imposed reductions came to an end.
Clients were already struggling with the cost of accommodation and food, and the cost of fuel would see food prices continue to rise, she said.
McCombe was also concerned about the increased isolation of the vulnerable community, like the elderly or those in areas not serviced by public transport, who could not afford to get to other people.
Across New Zealand, there were 1,328 Kiwisaver hardship withdrawals in March compared to 1,057 the same time last year. There had been 16,346 withdrawals in the last year.
Gaspy co-developer Larry Green said on Monday that the national average of 91 was $2.94, which had increased by 10.49 per cent in the last 38 days.
On March 14, Cabinet decided to reduce fuel excise duties and road user charges by 25c a litre each, for three months from 11.59pm that night.
This would run out on June 14, but the Government announced that it would extend the tax cut a further two months as part of this year's Budget.
Petrol stations told the Bay of Plenty Times that a number of factors went into fuel costs, including shipping, the price of carbon, local competitive pressures, the exchange rate, market fluctuations, taxes, ETS commitments and the cost of oil per barrel, which was influenced by global events.
Spokespeople from Z, BP, Gull and Waitomo said they reviewed prices daily to ensure competitiveness in the market and the best prices possible.
A Gull spokeswoman said it hasn't been able to absorb all the costs as it would put the company below cost price as costs from suppliers had been "extremely high".
She said Gull offered regular discount days but doing it all the time put "considerable strain" on the business and contractors.
A Waitomo spokeswoman said the company wasn't immune to inflationary pressure and rising costs, and fuel prices impacted the business, too.
The profit margins hadn't changed, and she said the company was absorbing increasing costs, and it could offer lower prices because it was a low-cost operator.
A Z spokeswoman said it made up to 50 price changes a day outside of any nationwide move.
Z expected the volatility in the price to continue given the ongoing war in Ukraine and subsequent impacts on the global supply chain.
Z is the wholesale fuel supplier to Caltex stations, but the independently owned and operated businesses made their own decisions regarding pricing.
A BP spokeswoman encouraged customers to join and access the AA Smartfuel Programme.
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