KEY POINTS:
The annual bill for filling up an average family car will have risen by 50 per cent in 18 months by Christmas.
With the price of crude oil continuing to increase, experts say the cost of a litre of 91 octane unleaded fuel could hit $2.50 by the end of the year.
The AA said that would see the cost of running a 1.6 to 2-litre, 4-cylinder car for 14,000km a year reach $3095, up more than $1000 since last May.
The average family's annual petrol bill has already skyrocketed by 28 per cent, or more than $600, in a year.
Senior AA policy analyst Mark Stockdale told the Herald on Sunday it cost an extra $26.40 to fill a 60-litre vehicle with petrol and $42.60 with diesel. He said filling a typical family car with 91 octane would cost $2488 a year at current prices, compared with $1943 a year ago.
Petrol prices had risen 44c, more than a quarter, in a year, with diesel prices shooting up 71c or a massive 69 per cent.
Stockdale said all indications were that there would be "no let-up" in price rises. The AA expected this would force more people to modify their driving behaviour and predicted a shift to more economical models.
"Eventually everyone has to replace their car, and when that happens they will look at shopping around."
But he said the need to stay mobile meant most drivers would put up with the extra hundreds of dollars a year in fuel and tighten their belt in other areas, such as ditching the family trip to Fiji or cutting back on luxury goods. "For a lot of people, giving up the car just isn't an option."
New Zealand had higher pump prices than the United States and Australia, but it still had the fifth-cheapest fuel among developed countries.
"Most Western countries are already paying a lot more than us," said Stockdale. "They've already gone through what we've gone through and it hasn't stopped people driving in those countries either."
