Roadtrip App

Roadtrip is a Wellington-built fuel cost calculator app that shows users the cost of driving from point A to point B using their exact car model. Launched in December 2021 by co-founders Emory Fierlinger and Ben Robertson, the app reached number one on the New Zealand App Store through word-of-mouth alone with zero paid marketing. Users simply enter an origin, destination, and their licence plate number, and the app calculates the trip cost based on real-time fuel prices, the vehicle's fuel efficiency (retrieved via NZTA's licence plate database), and route distance. In response to New Zealand's April 2024 introduction of Road User Charges for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, the Roadtrip team built What the RUC (whattheruc.com), a companion calculator that estimates annual RUC costs for EV and PHEV owners. The Roadtrip app itself was also updated to factor RUC into trip cost calculations for electric and hybrid vehicles, making it one of the few consumer tools to integrate RUC data directly into journey cost estimates. The app has since expanded internationally to the UK (March 2024), Australia, and the United States, with over 600,000 downloads worldwide.

Roadtrip is one of the few consumer-facing apps in New Zealand that integrates Road User Charges directly into trip cost calculations. When NZ introduced RUC for light EVs and PHEVs in April 2024, the Roadtrip team responded by building the What the RUC companion calculator and updating the main app to factor RUC into journey costs for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The tools leverage NZTA's vehicle registration database to identify vehicle type and apply the correct RUC rate ($76/1,000km for EVs, $53/1,000km for PHEVs).