Here's a thought: if the percentage of cars on the road which are electric rises significantly over the next decade or so, will the corner gas-station have a problem? I have heard that the gas is not really the source of profits, but it is the source of the traffic. If fewer drivers need to fill up (or they have to do it less often, in the case of a hybrid), will the convenience store business model be threatened? Or, perhaps, it will just more or less seamlessly morph into the corner grocery store.
If things remain the same, business will likely flourish: such station can install charging equipment as well, and since recharging takes more time than refilling gas tank, customers will spend more time (and money) on site.
By definition, if EVs become dominant over ICE, things haven't remained the same. Gasoline is voluminous, and both expensive and difficult to transport and store. Electricity requires no volume or storage, and thus the need for a specialized "gas station" is mostly negated, as virtually anyone can offer it.
I imagine most workplaces will offer low-cost charging as an employee benefit, thus, most people will have the option to charge either at home or at work. How many drivers will still need to stop off at a gas station then?
We'll replace petrol stations with using the areas for roadside stops with cafe, shop and charging station. The picture will be more like the 1950s than today with perhaps fewer overall. Humans will still want a break, lunch, opportunity to take a leak, stretch their legs etc... add top up charging to it and you've reinvented the gas station and roadside diner.
On long roadtrips, sure. But 90+% of gas stations are just on a random corner catering to commuters and locals who will no longer have much need for their services. The C-stores may remain, but without the necessary gas stops, there will be far fewer of them, perhaps as many as CVS/Walgreens.
>> The picture will be more like the 1950s
lol, is there any aspect of life today that feels like the 1950's?
Something like a big fastfood chain with drive-thrus can probably soak up all that custom -- drop in for a burger and boost charge your car in the car-park for 20mins. You need to pair it with something that people will already spend the charging time doing, so they feel they're not wasting their stay. People don't tend to spend 15-20mins in a petrol station (ie "gas station") in the UK, but they will spend that sitting in their car at the drive-thru (I don't understand why they don't go in).
Maybe we'll get like "short-stay malls" where there's a parking area with all chargers (and solar panels above the car-height) and around the edge are small stores with food, hairdressers, valeting services, and such like places?
I think that people's cars are often more comfortable than a fast food restaurant. A car stereo is the best sound system that many people own. The seats are well padded, and many have entertainment systems. Why go out into the weather to sit on a plastic bench when you could stay in and watch a movie while you wait?
Me, I find it a little odd that they'd rather wait in a ten-deep line than go into a nearly-empty store. But my car isn't particularly nice, and if I'm eating fast food, it's because I'm in a hurry.
In 6 months driving a Renault Zoe, I have been in gas stations twice. Once for killing time during a rare not at-work charge, and once for getting a snack for my son.
Gas stations are dinosaurs that haven't heard the shockwave of the meteor yet.
But at what rate do gasoline customers enter the store now? I suspect that rate is far lower than 5%.
In that case, cars going electric would very positive effect. IIRC, Circle K (a large gas station chain) derives around half of it's profits from concession sales, with the other half from gas.
Additionally, given the higher cost of electric cars, their owners are likely to be wealthier than their ICE driving counterparts. This is an assumption on my part, but I suspect that wealthier people are much less likely to shop at gas stations since items sold their often target poorer demographics. A shift to electric cars would mean that demographics which were already unlikely to enter the store are more likely to make a purchase, while not impacting the lower end clientele.
The rate of customers who make additional purchases is closer to 50%. Source: I know a guy who runs a gas station. Profits from additional sales are bigger than from selling gas: they have 3-4% margin selling gas and 30-70% margin selling additional products. Coffee, wiping cloths, chocolate bars, etc.
I used to work in a gas station during high school and did the paper work for the owner each morning.
He was a franchise, so his gas margin was even lower, closer to 1-2%. And yes, most of the profit came from inside sales where the margins were 50%+ or higher.
This has to vary greatly based on location. I almost always go inside gas stations along a freeway trip. I don't know that I've been inside a "local" station in 15 years unless the real purpose of the trip was to grab a Powerball ticket and the gas fill-up was incidental. So maybe five times total.
Those factors can change. Currently charging at night at home is cheaper today, only because power company makes it so. Ideally cars should charge when the sun is up, in day time. If they were self driving, it could charge while we work. Don’t assume everyone work place will become a gas station
>charging at night at home is cheaper today, only because power company makes it so.
They make it so because there's excess capacity at night, when most everyone is asleep. This is not an arbitrary decision.
>Ideally cars should charge when the sun is up, in day time
That's not even remotely true. Someday MAYBE, if massive solar deployment shifts our excess capacity from night to daytime, but that's certainly not the case right now.
> Ideally cars should charge when the sun is up, in day time. If they were self driving, it could charge while we work.
Ideally cars should charge during times when energy is cheaper. This could be at times of lower consumer demand, like at night or at times when prices are cheaper because variable and barely off at all controllable renewables are dumping power into the grid, like when it’s especially sunny or windy.
Wind apparently produces more at night. I guess it makes sense given thermal cycling. Sun goes down and locally cools producing a temperature differential which makes wind more night-biased and a good solar complement.
Which suggests favoring the time based on whatever the "grid-time-bias" has cheaper.
>Currently charging at night at home is cheaper today, only because power company makes it so. Ideally cars should charge when the sun is up, in day time.
Power's cheaper at night because demand's lower. The sun being out during daytime does make more solar power available, but there's also higher demand because everyone's awake. Unless there's evidence to the contrary, I'm inclined to believe that night power is cheaper because of pure market forces, rather than being dictated by the power company.
i always wondered why the battery cannot simply be swapped for a charged one. like going through a carwash. would be even faster than filling a tank of gas.
once there's enough EV, it seems justified to democratize the consumable batteries.
The technology exists, but in practice I think people just don't want it. It is psychologically unappealing.
When people are going about their business, trying to get from point A to B but interrupted by insufficient fuel, they don't want anything that feels like major surgery being done to their car. There's a possibility for something to go wrong, and no matter how statistically unlikely, they're still going to think about it. People want this to be a casual interaction that stays in the background of their mind so they can focus on whatever they were already thinking about.
Also many people prefer to hold onto the thing they already own even if it is a convenient moment to think about changing. For example, if you have a cheap beater car that's worth $1000 and it needs an $1100 repair, you could buy a used $1000 beater car instead of fixing the one you have, but many people will pay to have theirs fixed. This is partly to avoid the hassle of buying but also partly because their beater is a known quantity to them. Back to the electric car battery swap, maybe your battery pack is a few years old and only retains 90% range, which isn't great, but how do you know the one you swap to won't have 80%? Maybe it will have 97%, but you just don't really know.
As a thought experiment, imagine a gas station near you offered two options for inflating your tires. You can pay $2 to use a self-serve air compressor, which will probably take you 5 or 10 minutes. Or, for free and in only 1 minute, a pit crew will come out and swap out your tires and rims for a different set, that they promise are the same make and model and are in equal or better condition. Do you take the pit crew option? I wouldn't.
From what I gather, it worked fine technically, but very few customers actually decided to use it. Lots of Tesla owners tried it once, but most realized that it wasn't worth paying the cost associated with additional complexity (it wasn't free) especially since it's actually really nice to have a 20 minute break after driving for five hours.
In theory yes, but only if battery is being leased from a nationwide entity.
However, practically it takes more than 10 minutes to securely remove and attach the heaviest thing in a car no matter how easy we make it. Super charging will already make it < 10 minutes
What's interesting is that aircraft piston engines are remanufactured that way (using swapping.)
After flying 2,000 hours, you drop your engine on a palette, ship it back, the mfg. sends somebody else's overhauled engine back to you, and you install that one.
But instead of 10 minutes, it takes over a month. Oh, and that $10k to $100k bill per engine ...
Unless the batteries are standardized every manufacturer needs their own distribution network for their batteries. I don’t think that’s viable. Making the battery swappable would probably also require some serious design compromises.
You can, batteries are just super expensive right now. So a trade-in program (like it exists for BBQ gas tank, or the SodaStream pressured gas) doesn't make a lot of economic sense for the partner taking on the risk of getting a bad battery in.
Maybe it could become a possibility in the future as the price drops though!
EV drivers will need to spend much longer filling up, particularly at high-demand times when there's a queue. Gas stations will probably transition from grab-and-go to a more café style atmosphere where people don't mind spending an hour.
service stations will be redeveloped into higher value real estate such apartments or commercial buildings.
there is no reason with EV to have a separate facility as you don't need a massive fuel storage tank underneath. you'd just add charging capabilities to existing parking lots at shopping centres, malls, restaurants, etc.
so you're right people will be eating / drinking / shopping while charging but it won't be at what's currently a fuel station today.
This. In many areas, as per the article, housing developers will gobble up the land. This is certainly already the case where I live in North London, to the point where finding somewhere to fill up is becoming increasingly painful. By contrast we have charging points for electric cars springing up in all sorts of random places, including on the high street next to existing cafes and coffee shops.
The end of the article talks about this specifically. Basically if half the gas stations close down, you just have to be in the top 50% to stay in business, and because of less of competition they can even increase margins.
You would have slightly fewer drivers as people would charge at home. However, that's probably a low percentage of the total.
For those that stick around, the duration of a visit will generally increase (filling up 200 miles worth of petrol takes less time than 200 miles charge, even at 100kW or more).
I'm more likely to buy something at somewhere I perceive to be 'overpriced' if I'm there for longer, want somewhere nice to sit and eat, etc.
Interesting point. I'm also more likely to be able to leave my car while it's "filling up" if I'm just plugging it in, as opposed to if I'm refilling the gas. It could actually work out for them, even if the total number of customers goes down by half, if they're twice as likely to go inside and buy something.
Countries with fewer cars driving fewer miles still manage to have gas stations, so I think basic market economics will kick in. Gas will get more expensive, or stations will get a little more sparse, or both. After all there will still be a demand.
