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Comment by philips | Hacker News Reader

A similar problem: what happens when low margin fuel/petrol/gas station businesses start going insolvent? I wonder if states are ready for businesses to be abandoning their underground storage tank infrastructure in a decade or two?

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Petrol/Gas stations make money from the convenience store, not the fuel. Considering how long batteries take to charge, they will make more money (but they would have to expand capacity significantly).

I think it all depends on the location of the service station. The big gas stations on major freeways will likely survive. But, the local neighborhood stations near suburbs or other housing will likely go away as folks charge where they park their cars while at home or work.

This article goes into data a bit based on information from Norway which has been electrifying passenger vehicles rapidly. Although, I wish there was better data to draw on. Maybe London will provide some data soon as they add more and more zones where EVs are preferred.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-18/when-cars...

Petrol/Gas stations are the last place I'd want to spend time whilst my car is charging. My guess is supermarkets and shopping centres are going to fill that need and local petrol stations will disappear.

I'd love to see the emergence of Japanese style konbini convenience stores. Something with a better selection than the big gulp and roller dogs of your typical American pit stop. That might actually drive a trend where a 20 minute stop to fill up makes sense.

Shopping centers definitely have a nice synergy but I can see the demand for ev spots outpacing supply, so there will likely always be need for on demand charging.

they make operating cash flow from convenience store, the profit ultimately comes from increase in land valuation, same game as mcdonalds really

Globally, McDonald's makes an average of ~$200,000 income per store per year. Convenience stores mostly don't do that well, but the typical land isn't appreciating at anywhere near that pace either.

(It can be in some places; here, there's undeveloped land near most of the stores, which is a common scenario…)

Really? Gas stations usually become toxic waste cleanup sites at EOL. How do they turn a profit by selling the land?

Exactly the term the EPA uses is Brownfield:

> Petroleum brownfields, such as old abandoned gas stations, are being cleaned up and reused to the benefit of communities across the country. EPA’s Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST) and Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization (OBLR) jointly focus on the cleanup and reuse of petroleum contaminated sites.

https://www.epa.gov/ust/petroleum-brownfields

Many gas stations are on valuable land, such as on the corner of two major streets.

So maybe whoever is redeveloping that land will be willing to pay the cleanup costs to gain access to it.

I predict the emergence of a cottage industry of rentable towable generators. Unfortunately you can't charge a Tesla while driving, but there have been EVs that let you do this. Regardless, I think there are certain situations (camping and long road trips) where having some electric peace of mind would be valuable, knowing you won't get stranded if you can't find a charger.

Also I suspect we will need underground tanks of dinosaur squeezings for longer than 20 years. Cars being sold today routinely last over 15 years, plus yard equipment, generators, etc.

They definitely aren’t ready. Zoning as it exists requires extensive environmental cleanup or delays of at least a decade before development can happen. A bunch of land is going to lay fallow for a good while.

I was skimming through the EPA’s Underground Storage Tank Responsible Parties documentation and getting more and more horrified at how I am sure these companies will structure themselves, via lease agreements or other mechanisms, to limit their liability as they go insolvent.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-03/documents/rp...

Pretty sure that this is happening already- there are definitely fewer petrol stations than there were.

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