'It's the average man against big oil. Like any good story, you've got a good guy and a bad guy.”

Larry Green, one of the brains behind the new Gaspy app, considers the app the good guy in this tale – and the bad guy being the petrol companies.

Mike Newton, Larry Green and Ben Smith are ‘spies' behind Gaspy. Photo: Daniel Hines.

'Gaspy, as in spying on the gas prices,” laughs Larry from Hwem, the Tauranga company behind the app.

Toted as New Zealand's original fuel finding app, Gaspy was developed and is currently being tested in Tauranga.

It tells users where the cheapest petrol and diesel can be found in their area.

'We wanted to launch it here so we could keep a close eye on things, and in a market size we can manage initially; then we're expanding so the next area will be Auckland seeing as that's got the largest populous and that's got more than 300 gas stations in the Auckland region.”

Larry says the app is simple to use, and comes with a few different features.

'It's pretty straightforward, it just collects all data from the gas stations in that area, and when you open the app it tells you one of two things – it tells you where the cheapest gas is closest to you, and then you can push one button and it can tell you simply where the closest station is.

'It also gives you the difference in distance all automatically, so you can make an informed decision on whether it's worth driving an extra block to save 15 cents.”

The free app has a feedback form, which Larry says the design team has found very useful.

'The cool thing about doing something that's for free and being community-focused is that people are really forthcoming with their feedback – and we don't really get any negative feedback.

'It's been quite easy to adjust and improve it in the last few weeks just because of the helpful feedback.”

'With the price of petrol, you just can't control it. But now with Gaspy you really will have a choice, because you can simply veto all the worst prices and you can create more fair trade because companies will be forced to keep their prices at least competitive.”

Hwem launched the app as a community project.

'We wanted to allocate a certain amount of time each year to do something for the community, so that was the seed of the idea, and this is the first one we've done.

'We wanted to find something that was really useful elsewhere and make a New Zealand version.”

And though the app focuses on petrol and diesel pricing, it steers clear of gas quality.

'We're interested only in petrol price, not petrol politics.”

Gaspy is currently available on Android phones, and the iPhone app will be coming soon.