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Comment by smileysteve | Hacker News Reader

The economies of this will be interesting;

Gas stations make small margin on gas, but high margin on convenience stores;

Electric Cars upset this, because 80% of trips can be slow charged at home; But the one difference is those 20% of trips requiring charging will have longer stops (potentially optimizing for higher, restaurant margins).

*Yes, there are situations where home charging in cities is less likely possible.

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Why do you need a 'gas station' to charge a car?

Honest question as at that point you just need a parking spot with a charging station, no human required on site.

same for gas, no human required on site to fuel a car but "gas stations" exist.

There are a tiny number of gas stations that don't have a human on site. However they also don't have restrooms, or anything else for sale (sometimes a vending machine). Gas stations exist with humans because the real money is in all the snacks they sell inside. Fresh pizza needs someone to cook it and put it in the warmer.

Business idea: Food truck parked at electric charging stations.

In places like Wyoming and South Dakota, US gas stations come with slot machines inside. I wonder if having people stay around for a longer time, plus loosening regulations on gambling, means that this is the future way to incredible profits for gas stations.

Most restaurants have much lower margins than convenience stores I would guess.

They are probably thinking gas-station's with more than just snacks, e.g. wawa, sheetz

I'd guess so too, bigger ticket though, could believe they'd profit more from a meal while EV charges vs average convenience sale while nipping in to pay for fuel (that's only if you don't pay at pump anyway), which I think is GP's point.

And their biggest margin item is alcohol, which is kind of a non-starter for a roadside restaurant.

Er, what? Don't they sell beer and wine at the roadside in Europe? At gas stations and rest areas even?

Do they? As in for immediate consumption on the premises? Or packaged to-go? The latter seems reasonable, but the former seems like a somewhat dangerous idea. Maybe I'm just too US-centric

Usually to-go, yes. It seems in the UK that it's possible but discouraged to sell for on-premises: https://motorwayservices.uk/Alcohol

Depends on store. One at gas station usually have high margins, probably lower volume. On other hand regular stores have very low margins. They just have massive volume. Convenience stores by my understanding are one of the lowest margin businesses. Maybe with selling gas.

I'm curious about the cost structure of a gas station relative to a charging station. I would imagine that like an unattended charging port, connected to the grid and monitored remotely, would be very different to run and fund compared to the usual attended gas station where fuel is trucked in. If the costs can be brought significantly down, but the annual consumer outlay can be kept the same, then it could be way more profitable. I have no idea how feasible that latter one is though, people with EVs- are you saving money on fuel?

> 80% of trips can be slow charged at home

So, there needs to be a power grid (electricity generation + distribution) to be able to slow charge at home for the masses and fast chargers ever 60km. That is quite a delta to what we have for our power grids today.

Slow charging is ~1600w; Which is a similar power rating as a hair dryer or single burner stove (including induction), a small 120v point of use water heater, or 16 100w light bulbs.

Surely, we don't have to be cooking all night long on every connection; but surely even historically the grid can handle 16 light bulbs somewhere in the house.

> Yes, there are situations where home charging in cities is less likely possible.

Didn't you hear? We will have chargers in every street light pole, even in European old-town city centres!

I get the sarcasm but this is not spatial problem.

Also: "old-town city centres" are often car-free.

Yes; 95% was a number typically cited for trips that electric cars with <40 miles of range applied for; so i gave those without ready charging situation additional %; Along with the technology advancements in the last 30 years; like 5x+ the range.

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