Since so few of them are, I assume that it's not beneficial.
If the government wants this, it should pay station owners to do it.
Cause and effect. It would be profitable if there were enough BEVs, and there would be enough BEVs if people weren’t afraid they might not be able to find somewhere to recharge.
At least, that’s the logic.
So you could argue it's would be in the best interest of the owners to not allowing charging stations, as that would help to slow the uptake of EVs.
And the majority of these 'every day commuters' would currently own conventional cars.
Those who drive electric cars would be charging their cars at home and as such hardly every need to stop in these stores.
By replacing conventional cars with EVs will only see that tight profit margin getting tighter.
And that's with me making few convenience stops. There's lots of people that get a coffee every day, they aren't buying gas each time.
Chargers require capital outlay. Unless you can prove that your revenue is going to offset the capital outlay fairly quickly (<1 year), I'm not going to do it given the margins on most gas stations.
If it were a great deal (measuring by NPV), you'd see companies formed to raised capital and install charging stations at gas stations in some sort of revenue sharing / land leasing arrangement. In fact, there are such companies, and they are slowly marching down the path.
Again, if the government wants to make this happen, there's an easy solution: provide the capital.
A failing of modern economic theory, assuming that every entity acts logically and in their best interest.
Is it bad that I don't really care?
I mean we've seen what happens when companies are left to their own accord. Sometimes an external pressure is required.
I hope to see one day that gas stations have become obsolete.