A taxi driver's 10-year career could be over by the end of this year if fuel remains expensive and a lack of tourists continues to shrink his income.
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, six Rotorua petrol stations charged more than $3 per litre for 91 octane, according to fuel price tracking app Gaspy.
Waitomo Fenton Park offered the cheapest fuel at $2.85 per litre while the most expensive was Caltex Te Ngae at $3.32 per litre.
Rotorua taxi driver of 10 years, Hem Chand, might be seeking 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 a lack of tourists, who were the main customers.
His company had not increased the price of fares recently, which meant his profits were lower.
"It's very hard to survive."
Chand had a mortgage, was the breadwinner of the family and said being paid less alongside the rising interest rates and cost of living was difficult.
He would wait until September to gauge how many tourists came to the city when the borders opened and said he would quit working as a taxi driver if nothing improved.
Tauranga Cars owner Jono Allen said interest in and sales of electric and hybrid vehicles had spiked after petrol prices hit $3 per litre earlier this year.
In the last month, 30 per cent of his sales were for the cleaner-running vehicles compared to 10 per cent last year.
"With people getting $180 petrol bills, they're starting to think they need to do something."
Coinciding with this, demand for petrol-powered cars had fallen, he said.
However, the overall volume of vehicles sold had fallen "significantly" in the last year, which he believed came down to a drop in disposable income.
He said not enough thought had been put into safe vehicles for low-income households who could not afford lower emission options.
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-emission 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 not able to replace them.
In Budget 2022 the Government put half a billion dollars to help low-income families shift to electric and hybrid vehicles.
Transporting New Zealand chief executive Nick Leggett said fuel used to account for 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, and he expected to see "volatility" in the fuel market in September when the Government reductions are lifted.
Rising fuel costs had eaten into the margins of many road transport companies, he said.
This was despite the Government reduction on road user charges on diesel, which equated to a discount of about 36 per cent.
There were also labour cost pressures in an inflationary environment, he said.
Rotorua Budget Advisory Services manager Pakanui Tuhura said the cost of fuel was a barrier to people accepting jobs if they needed to travel long distances or outside public transport hours to get there.
He said after crunching the numbers, some jobs meant the take-home pay after travelling to work was not enough to meet essential costs.
Those who had to spend money on fuel had cut back on food, turned down work unless it was nearby, dipped into their savings or applied for KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals.
Across New Zealand, there were 1328 KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals in March compared to 1057 the same time last year. There had been 16,346 withdrawals in the last year.
He said income governed how quickly someone got to the point of sacrificing their essential needs, and poorer households who relied on their vehicle for work would suffer first.
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.
McCombe was 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.
Gaspy co-developer Larry Green on Monday said 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 both fuel excise duties and road user charges by 25c a litre for three months from 11.59pm that night.
This was to end on June 14 but as part of this year's Budget, the Government announced it would extend the tax cut a further two months.
Petrol stations told the Rotorua Daily Post a number of factors went into the fuel price, including shipping costs, carbon prices, local competition, market fluctuations, taxes 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.
A Gull spokeswoman said it hasn't been able to absorb all the costs as it would put the company below cost price with "extremely high" supplier costs.
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 or rising costs, and fuel prices also impacted the business.
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, and it expected price volatility 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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