Four out of five people are driving less due to the high cost of fuel, according to the Consumer NZ Fuel Price Poll.
“With the price of fuel past $3 a litre in most parts of the country, it's inevitable that we're seeing many New Zealanders looking to minimise their driving. A lot of people don’t have a choice, they can’t afford their fuel bill right now,” said Jon Duffy, chief executive of Consumer NZ.
The poll was conducted online between 12 and 16 March and had 390 respondents.
Individuals are trying different approaches to pain at the pump, the poll found, with two thirds of respondents only topping up with small amounts as needed, rather than buying a full tank.
On the other hand, a third are filling up in anticipation of further price increases, feeling today's deal is as good as it's going to get.
More efficient vehicles are also looking much more attractive, with a third also considering switching to a hybrid or electric vehicle.
Terry Collins, principal advisor at the AA says those who have already bought EVs will be "patting themselves on the back."
"New Zealand is good for EVs because of the highly renewable electricity scheme and the great thing about an electric fleet is that it will improve the investment for renewables - we'll need to generate more as we get growth."
He flagged political instability in Russia and Ukraine as a potential supply hurdle, however, as some source materials for the batteries come from these regions.
Consumer NZ's latest Sentiment Tracker, a wider quarterly survey of 1000 respondents, found rising fuel costs are now the sixth highest financial concern for New Zealanders, jumping from 11th place in previous quarters.
The cost of living category is number one, superseding the previous top issues of concern, which were Covid-19 and the price of housing.
“We know a lot of New Zealanders are really feeling the pain at the pump right now and it’s worsened by increased price pressure across other essentials like groceries, power and rents,” says Duffy.
Collins says AA members have not yet been surveyed since the latest round of increases, but he assumes motorists will take less discretionary trips and use alternative transport when practical, such as walking to the shops if they're nearby.
Work travel is less flexible for some, he says, but those who can work from home will do so.
"It’s those people who have options who will be exercising them and those without them won’t be."
Whether any behaviour changes are short or long term is difficult to say, says Collins, however as a country we are being channeled in that direction.
"All the Government policies are shifting us out of the private motor car, there are long term commitments to climate change, moves towards public transport and forms of transport that are low emission."
Consumer NZ offers these fuel tips to motorists at a time when every dollar counts:
- Drive smoothly to avoid excessive use of the accelerator.
- Take away extra items to lessen the load and avoid burning more fuel than necessary.
- Check you have the correct tyre pressure and pump up your tyres to the right level at the petrol station.
- Wind up your windows and switch to the air-con to reduce your vehicle’s wind resistance.
- Drive less by batching your errands together in one trip, or skip the car to take a short walk or bike instead when you can.
33 Comments
Unfortunately there is little we can do regarding fuel pricing, the centralised supply and global factors mean that there are few alternatives for most people when prices rise, which benefits overseas suppliers, refiners, distributors and government through increased taxes based on percentages
People are clearly being more cautious as to when and how they use their cars as the cost per trip bites into disposable income
Buying an EV is significantly cheaper to run, and while there will come a time when you may have to replace the battery (particularly on older leafs) they will still make sense... at roughly 15kw/ 100km the cost of charging is roughly between $1.50 - $4.50 per 100km depending on the electricity plan your on
Compare that to traditional cars and even a moderately efficient 1.8 - 2.0l will use 7 litres/ 100km which right now is roughly 7x $2.64 = $18.48..
The key difference is that electricity in NZ is not as heavily taxed as you cannot monitor who is using a freezer vs. charging a car as they use the same sockets
Using price as a sole mechanism will never work. The masses don't like it when the rich can pollute while they cannot. They hate it even more when that pollution drives food prices to levels that make them starve.
The thing is, it's not the price of anything that is the problem. It's the fact it has a price to begin with.
"More is better" provided you have a readily available substitute. If you don't then "more petrol taxes" just become " a tax on going to work" that those who live in central areas with better transit options are able to opt-out of.
At some point the absolutism when it comes to "just keep increasing tax so people somehow change their lifestyle" whether or not they have the means or ability to do so sounds a lot like "I can afford to have a conscience but if the poor can't then they should just try not being poor".
Wind up your windows and switch to the air-con to reduce your vehicle’s wind resistance
eh?! i know the windows down increases drag but the aircon uses fuel too.
who not just toughen up and put up with a bit of temperature variation?
someone i know drives around all year with the aircon set to 18 (with a roof box on as well!) and complains about gas prices....
Great news if it reduces the number of double-cab utes and SUVs on the roads. I have witnessed the 'creep' of these gass-guzzlers increasingly crowding the streets. From my observation it is the uppity wives who want to keep up with the other mothers by driving their kids to school in a big usually black or white SUV; the husband justifies the purchase by saying he doesn't want his wife and kids killed in an accident if in a smaller car.
No-one considers that if everyone drove a smaller car everyone would be safer.
And then there's the young apprentice tradie who can't wait to get that double-cab ute even if he has to finance up to the hilt to fund the purchase.
Please indicate why you think this. Every lifecycle analysis I have ever read has come to the conclusion that they are around 30-80% less carbon emitting than ICE vehicles, depending on the mix of renewables in the energy supply. For NZ, we would be close to 80% thanks to our high renewable electricity generation. And most of these are conservative, assuming the cars run life is something like 200k miles, while there are Tesla's for instance that are getting half a million miles from batteries, with only small changes to the vehicles, mostly due to build issues or faulty installation (which was kind of expected with a new car company). There aren't many ICE vehicles that you can get half a million miles from and they are still running fine without a major overhaul and likely engine replacement, adding to the carbon cost. Sure the batteries degrade and need recycling, but Tesla also does that itself, recycling around 90% of battery components, furthering lowering their emissions. And they use cobalt free batteries now...
I use Tesla as the example above because it's the biggest electric only car maker. Expect other car manufacturers to follow suit eventually...
The thing to remember is the first ICE cars that came out were a bit crap on their fuel consumption etc. Over time, with more people investing in the vehicles and fierce competition, they got better and better. Today's ICE cars have over 100 years of development in them and a lot of technology. We a just at the start of that same cycle for electric cars, they will get better and better, more fuel efficient, better batteries, improved electric motors etc etc. By advocating for NOT investing in them is... frankly stupid. If we want to sort out climate change and advance our transport systems, electric cars and likely trucks (maybe hydrogen) are a requirement.
I think this is mainly battery, 90% recycling will probably be a top end a advertising estimate, I remember when New Zealand's "recycling" was sent to China to be dumped. Mining and disposing of batteries have very real environmental consequences. In the end taking 1.5 tones of vehicle to go somewhere will never be good for the environment. It is as the previous statement said it emits less carbon then internal combustion engines.
That's the point I am making - it is already pretty stupid to dispose of batteries, given they retain all the elements you need to make a new one. Tesla is integrating it into their supply chain, so it won't be magical advertising numbers, or their whole process would stop.
It's the lesser of two evils, yes I always say transporting huge heavy machines around just to move the 80kg of meat in it between 2 points, is an environmental nightmare. But better and better batteries enable us to rethink mobility, as you are seeing with electric scooters that have come online over the past 5 years or so. That battery tech is coming down from electric cars and heavy electric machinery (forklifts etc), but requires large investment. That means us buying the products.
It's not like cars are going away though, given we have built our cities around them. Given that cars aren't going away, we have 2 choices, continue with ICE vehicles, or switch to EV. We should be choosing and encouraging the one that has the least planetary impact.
As 43% of all car trips in NZ are under 5km away... just use your bike or walk! The last suggestion at the end of the article is the best one, but also the one people are least likely to do... meanwhile, what number are we on the countries with the highest obesity?
Yes to this - I often take the dog for a stroll at the same time, that's got to be a win win. Pre Covid I used to bike 25kms each way for work, easy once you're used to it (pop the bike in the car and drive halfway until you're fit enough) and shower at work. Be careful and treat all other road users like they're idiots - especially 4wds around schools. Use your eyes, ears and neck to see what's around you at all times. I ride a motorcycle too, more fun, more speed and great for road awareness - same rules apply. Save time, money, parking, and gym fees.
On open road most people could substantially improve their fuel economy by driving at about 75km/h where they car is most efficient.
When I was young I had a little 150cc motorcycle and it did about 90mpg (3l per 100km.) I believe some diesel hatchbacks can achieve similar economy now.
Dont worry, with the "Zero road deaths by 2030" bullshit campaign we will not be allowed to drive anywhere in the country over 80km. So that will save us all plenty on fuel! unless its a truck that hauls all of our consumable goods, and takes twice as long, and uses more fuel......
LMAO - EV owners will feel the pinch sooner or later. Electricity comes from (reliable) sources such as coal and gas. As the price of those go up, so will the price of electricity.
Batteries cost a fortune too, as lithium prices go through the roof. Car manufacturers are even reverting to older tech batteries to save money, e.g. in the US. EV car manufacturers also finding aluminium prices are skyrocketing too just as much as the petrol car makers (maybe they'll switch to plastic body panels?).
But guess what, you can buy cheap second hand petrol/diesel cars - plenty to choose from with parts galore, and you can fix them yourself if you put in some effort.
But EVs? Not so many used ones out there and you're locked into the dealers for service and repair, no right to repair/service.. Any EVs with mileage above 50k on the odometer will have issues, especially 1st and 2nd gen models.
The rest is about as well-informed.
Such a dismissive, simple and poor strawman statement...
Sure, I understand a good portion of NZ's electricity comes from renewable sources, and that's fine for the current demand as it is.
BUT for more and more people to switch to EVs, a lot has to be done to make it viable and bearable for the everyday Kiwis (besides making the EVs themselves affordable).
1. Infrastructure - EVs place a heavy load on the power grid. Is our power grid up to the task? Who's paying for the upgrades?
2. Charging stations - same for the charging stations, they place a heavy load on the power grid too. More so if they're fast chargers. Also, in order to facilitate a meaningful transition over to EVs, there'd need to be thousands of charging stations built around the country. Who's going to do it? The government? Who'd pay for it? If it's us, then would EVs truly be affordable and viable? Or oil companies? But why would they?
It's all great to jump on the EV bandwagon, but the rest of the whole ecosystem has to be reinforced to cope too. Otherwise your EV may be sitting in the garage as we're all sitting in the dark from blackouts.
NZ doesn't have the same amount of sun as Australia, for example, wind is unreliable and worse unpredictable. Geothermal fields have a shelf life of about 50 years and seem to be underutilised. Marine and other technology such as low heat re-capture is sadly ignored even though that's probably the most common and reliable (when have the tides every stopped?).
Noise and ecosystem harm complaints from environmental groups, and even just local citizens protesting that wind turbines block their view says what we need to know about Kiwis being serious on renewable energy sources.
An example I'll give is the switch to work from home when the pandemic started. A number of people could do it easily because they already had laptops, which made it easier. But then as almost all switched to WFH and study from home, the demand on the telecomms infrastructure stretched it very thin, and many people experienced internet outages, glitchy video calls, etc.
Chorus had to up their game and start rolling out more fibre sooner and quicker than before the pandemic. The mobile phone companies had to up their game.
Companies also had to invest in more equipment for staff who didn't have laptops, or used home computers to do their work, so video cams, mics, wifi extenders, etc. All of this took time, implementation and cost.
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