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Comment by btbuildem | Hacker News Reader

Cautiously optimistic that they're doing it in order to maintain their stranglehold on transportation energy networks (what a thing to be optimistic about!) and not in effort to dismantle it aka auto companies vs light rail / trolleys / etc in the US back in the day.

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You can trivially find the sort of investments and projects Shell is working towards...they are heavily involved in offshore wind for electricity and green hydrogen. That they would be buying up EV charging in order to dismantle it can be dismissed outright.

https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/new-energies.htm...

https://www.shell.nl/media/persberichten/2020-media-releases...

IMO, the concern isn't so much dismantling it as mismanaging it. Some of these charge networks are moving to REALLY unattractive pricing models.

Yup.... shell (via subsidiary newmotion.com) just changed their pricing model in the Netherlands. From variable pricing per charging point (most cheaper than 35ct), they now have a fixed 35ct /kwh overall.

In practice it means my charging went from 18 or 25ct to 35ct/kwh. Lets just say I haven't used shell-recharge/newmotion since they implemented this last month.

Do you have a recommendation for another “provider”. I do like the maturity of the new motion app and most chargers i frequent were 32-35ct/kWh already.

I wonder what people now pay for charging for my NewMotion charger at home. That used to be controlled by my price. If I set that to 10ct/kWh, will they make a 25ct margin?

I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. One of the projects available to me was the Shell Eco Car marathon[0] challenge, where they sponsored teams and gave prizes to contest winners (I didn't choose that as my project, sadly).

They've been active in green/alternative energy research for decades and have made some huge bets on hydrogen. Sure, they're in oil and gas which makes them somewhat inherently slimy, but as far as I can tell they're the energy company making the best efforts to stop (or greatly reduce) their production and extraction of fossil fuels, and TFA only reinforces my opinion on that.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Eco-marathon

I think they are doing it for the right reasons. I think Shell has been working on next-gen fuels/tech for a while and even published a shareholder plan concerning their move to renewables.

If they do dismantle it, I don't see how they could avoid antitrust issues.

Indeed. They have been clear they want to get into green energy. https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-futur... (warning: loads slowly, crashes on iPad):

Shell is aiming to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050 or sooner.

We intend to meet our customers’ demand for cleaner energy, keeping in pace with society

Maybe oil companies can survive EV. If you're selling to the same customers for the same purpose, it's a sustaining (not disruptive) technology, according to Christensen.

Though he evaluated the first iPhone as non-disruptive, so IDK.

We still make a lot of the car with oil based products. Tires, plastic interiors, paint.

In all fairness there is a case to be made the first iPhone was non-disruptive. It would say the real disruptive technology was the app store not the phone itself. The first iPhone didn't have the app store.

Many people underestimated the first iPhone. It has all the capabilities to be a disruptive technology. The appstore was missing only due to timing of the release (this is my assumption, haven't checked out).

Also Christensen book has been critiqued many times especially about the inevitability of the disruptive technology [1].

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption...

I absolutely underestimated the iPhone, and the only reason I didn’t underestimate the Apple Watch was that I had learned to trust Apple’s judgement over my own — I still don’t really get what it is about the Watch that makes it such a success.

You would be wrong.

>One of those details Steve’s initial opinion on third-party apps for the iPhone. In the beginning, Steve was opposed to third-party apps, and wanted developers to create web apps that could be used through the device’s mobile Safari web browser. According to Apple board member, Art Levinson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion” of allowing apps on the company’s debut smartphone.

https://www.cultofmac.com/125180/steve-jobs-was-originally-d...

Shell see's the writing on the wall. Fossil fuel cars are going to no longer exist, and when that starts to happen, what you'll see is an over abundance of fuel supply pushing profits down.

All oil producers should be considering this sort of forward thinking move. Particularly with increasing regulations against fossil fuel cars in some states and all the EU, it makes a LOT of sense to start to make an exit plan like this.

Its hard to say for sure, IMO. Greenlots seems to have lost some locations in my state since the Shell acquisition.

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