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Comment by mhandley | Hacker News Reader

I wonder at what point most gas (petrol) stations start to be become uneconomical to run? As they start to close down, maybe range anxiety will start to become an issue for ICE vehicles. Is Norway getting close to this threshold already?

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It will be a while. Cars typically last for a bit over 10 years. Thus even if new cars were 100% electric today it would barely show up on anyone gas station bottom line this quarter. Next year it would show up of course, nobody would close but every CEO would mention it in their message to shareholders (along with their plans whatever they might be to deal with it). In 3 years the weakest stations will start closing, but this will be a positive for each on that remains. In 10 years you will need to search for pumps but there will still be enough to drive all major routes in a gas car without range anxiety. In 15 years there will start to be problems, but you will be able to get personal deliveries of fuel (farmers already do this for tractors) and pack a few full gas cans if you need it.

The above assumes 100% electric. However I think electric will hit a plateau at around 90%. For that last 10 % (might be 5) the power to weight advantage of liquid fuel is important enough to keep a few trucks on the road (not cars or SUVs, but perhaps buses and motor homes). While it is possible to make a truck work on electric, many of them are already weight constrained, (because roads and bridges cannot handle anything heavier) or license constrained (without a CDL you can only haul so much), either way less weight in the fuel system translates into more weight they can haul. There is a lot of energy in 100 gallons (400 liters) of diesel fuel, and big trucks and equipment will burn that much fuel in a day. So long as liquid fuel ( including biodiesel) is available some applications will be willing to pay a premium to get it.

Gasoline is already something of a loss leader...they're really convenience stores with attached pumps. Though without the captive audience, and without the space and infrastructure to replace the pumps with electric chargers, I doubt that the convenience stores will have the same level of traffic.

Agreed. Because it takes longer to charge than fill up with gas they won't be able to get sufficient volume.

But if you are bored there longer you're more likely to buy something?

Perhaps they will charge extra money to charge a car at the full speed the car is capable of and hobble charging speed for a lower price.

> Perhaps they will charge extra money to charge a car at the full speed the car is capable of and hobble charging speed for a lower price.

This would tie up their charging infrastructure and space for a longer time, making less money. Gas stations & charging venues are usually space-constrained because they're located on expensive real estate. Their goal is to maximize revenue and throughput in small spaces.

Do they do that with gas pumps?

No, but you can't browse in a shop while filling up with petrol (at least in the UK where we don't have those locks which keep the pump on while you walk away.)

Hmm, good point, I hadn't considered that. EV charging is totally unattended.

Makes me wonder what benefits there are to convenience store sales in states where "full service" is required.

I think it's the slow parking-spot chargers which are going to kill gas stations eventually.

IIRC CA already requires new buildings to be prepped for charging stations.

I mean, why drive somewhere to charge when you can plug in overnight and wake up to a car with 200km+ more worth of charge?

Then the format would have to change. They are optimized to sell skittles and slurpees as fast as possible, there would be no point in spending 15 more minutes at a current gas station convenience store.

Makes more sense to put chargers in places people park, like grocery stores.

Until electric cars can fully charge in less than 5 minutes, people will need something to do, so entertainment may become a thing (whether that's a coffee shop of an arcade for the kids, or just a place to sit on your phone, I have no idea).

As someone who owns an EV, but doesn't have a charger at home, I wish I could up vote this more :-) The biggest surprise for me is how much I enjoy charging the car -- it gets me out. If you put chargers around a pedestrian downtown core, it would be absolutely amazing. However, I suspect it's going to be huge at the malls in NA.

McDonald's is installing chargers at their locations in Sweden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QXo8TuvqQI

Presumably with the idea that they'll make money on the charging and get more business for the restaurant.

Unless EVs can charge faster, I really don't see them taking off. Sorry to be a luddite, but time is our number one good in the world and wasting more of people's time isn't scalable.

If I need gas and I have to pick up my kids after school or haul them to any appointment or other event it's not "okay" that I have to sit and wait for 30 mins. for my car to charge. Not. Going. To. Work.

Also, I live in a place that gets extremely cold, life threateningly cold. If my EV fails in that weather I could die.

Standing around for 30 minutes waiting for my car to recharge while my children beg me to buy them "entertainment" and snacks sounds like torture.

In New Jersey, at least, the "convenience store" at many gas stations consists of a row of cigarette packs in the attendant's booth and a soda machine outside. We also have plenty of standalone convenience stores here.

The smart ones put up charging stations here (in Norway) :)

Usually the charging stations are a different company like fortum, ionity, tesla etc. They make money on hot dogs anyway and they sell more hot dogs to people charging 15-20 minutes than people tanking for 3 minutes and drive on.

The gas station up the street installed 2 chargers next to the auto wash. The station is next to a sports park and office building, but nothing for general public to kill the time while charging. Time to start remodeling for upper scale coffee with seating.

>I wonder at what point most gas (petrol) stations start to be become uneconomical to run?

They will re-structure and monetize electrical charging in some manner. After all, the global governments need a way to recapture the vast amounts of gasoline taxes imposed on regular cars.

Maybe, restaurants and coffee shops will take up the slack and put up charging stalls. Since every business is wired for electricity already I can't imagine that it would require significant investment. Whereas gas stations require giant tanks buried under the ground.

In the UK the biggest supermarket is rolling out charging in their car parks.

Being "wired for electricity" is the trivial part of the requirements for installing charging stations. I expect most restaurants have a 20kVA - 35kVA service, and coffee shops a 10kVA - 20kVA service. Adding 10 2kVA chargers (which isn't a very large charger) would effectively double the service requirements for a restaurant and more than double the requirements for a coffee shop. That's a big capital expense, even if the circuits for the chargers are run on a completely new service (which actually makes "wired for electricity" irrelevant).

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