And even if so driverless cars won't give them any other business, as well as drastically alter the desired locations of the stations.
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.
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.
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.
Which suggests favoring the time based on whatever the "grid-time-bias" has cheaper.
Gas stations are dinosaurs that haven't heard the shockwave of the meteor yet.
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.
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.
Everywhere I've been from LA to halfway to Vegas usually has a fairly-crowded gas station. WAY more than 50% of people arriving go inside.
once there's enough EV, it seems justified to democratize the consumable batteries.
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
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 ...
Maybe it could become a possibility in the future as the price drops though!
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.
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?
>> The picture will be more like the 1950s lol, is there any aspect of life today that feels like the 1950's?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Having said that this is probably because I don't pay for the electricity... heh
i snapped it as proof else no one would believe me, like grainy, destabilized bigfoot footage.