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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

A lounge. There are too many today, tens of thousands will close. Most charging will take place at home or at work. EVs support payment by VIN with crypto primitives negotiating with the charger over the charger cable before charging starts, so how ever you’ll fund that balance (likely instant payments).

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/15/gas-stations-prices-closing

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I agree that the petrol/diesel niche will increasingly shrink, but it could take decades to vanish.

Perhaps some larger chain will step in, and incorporate one dinky petrol station at each location? The safety issues probably rule out a chain restaurant, but maybe Walmart will become the go-to.

Walmart is installing EV chargers at thousands of their locations. Tesla colocated at Meijer, some Targets, etc. Grocery stores, airports (Chattanooga airport hosts a Tesla charging station), anywhere people go today and there is power can be one.

Petrol won’t go away overnight, but it will reach tipping points where it’s no longer cost effective to deliver it to areas or host a petrol station once an inflection point occurs with regards to demand.

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/how-big-a-deal-is-walmarts-p...

https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2023/04/06/leading-the-ch...

https://www.plugshare.com/

https://supercharge.info/map

https://electrek.co/2023/10/20/cratering-motor-fuel-sales-in... (great comment on this: “Every day in the U.S. now there is enough EVs sold to displace an entire gas station-worth of fuel. Per day. And this is rapidly accelerating.”)

> The safety issues probably rule out a chain restaurant, but maybe Walmart will become the go-to

From a month and a half ago: "Walmart plans EV Charging network which will blanket the US within a few years" [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43814380

most people certainly do not live in a place that has a garage with dedicated charging port. people who leave their cars outside to charge will be subject to vandalism and pranksters cutting/disconnecting the cables. electric vehicles are luxury vehicles for people with means.

At least in the Bay Area it’s pretty common for people to park their car on the curb in front of their house and run a charge cable out over the sidewalk. Mostly just works.

*Parts of the Bay Area.

There are parts where you'd have people drive through the neighborhood at 3am and yank/cut the charging cables for the copper in them.

Alright, even if I were to grant this without reservation this doesn't get us back to the GP's assertion that electric vehicles are luxury cars for a select segment of the population.

This is certainly very location dependent. Where I live, outside parking is the norm, with lots of people either charging EVs or pre-heating their engine without being subjected to any vandalism.

In 2023, the U.S. had approximately 85.3 million single-family detached homes and 8.2 million single-family attached homes, totaling around 93.5 million single-family homes. This represents the majority of the nation's housing stock.

Rebates exist for a reason to install EV chargers at home. Certainly, it will take time, but the transition is inevitable at this point. The average daily round trip commute is less than 40 miles, which is ~12 hours of charging on a 15A 120V household outlet. Electricity is ubiquitous, and installing interfaces is relatively inexpensive and straightforward.

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