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Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

It'll be interesting to see what happens to gas stations. Part of what makes gas cars so popular is the easy ability to refuel, since stations are ubiquitous.

Once a tipping point is reached, most new homes will have the ability to charge cars, and old ones retrofitted, so people mostly charge at home. And gas stations will begin to dry up, making gas cars less desirable.

That same pattern should follow in every country, so it will be useful to have Norway as a data point on what actually happens.

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> And gas stations will begin to dry up

Will they though? I was under the impression "gas stations" make very little from the gas itself, and instead make most from the store (food/drinks etc.)

Recently they replaced a very simple and old gas station in my town with a completely new station featuring a robust store. The volume of business to that station has probably increased 10x.

I used to work for a gas station chain's corporate office in the mid '10s. In general the business was 50/50 gas and food sales, with gas having higher volumes and food having higher margins. The business strategy was to expand food sales and b2b gas and diesel sales (i.e. fuel for company fleets). There was also some niche targets like powersports (e.g. ethanol free fuel for classic vehicles and older recreational powersports equipment).

The only problem is you wouldn't go to a gas station if there wasn't gas there. The 5x price "convenience fee" is only convenient if you are already there anyway.

With EVs taking more time to charge for the time being, I can see the "convenience store" remaining if gas stations switch to electric, unless charge-at-home becomes more prevalent.

Alternatively, these might be replaced by restaurants with chargers, for drivers to take their lunch breaks while charging their cars on longer trips. Restaurants, or any popular activity you might want to do on the go (a tourist attraction, though the novelty might wear out, cinemas, spas, etc).

Given that it it probably easier to create a new charging station than a new gas station, a lot more competition might appear, and we might see "charging hubs", with basically facilities centered around a fast-charging station, for people to take a break while their cars recharge.

It could also disappear once actual fast-charging is a thing.

I imagine Sonic (https://www.sonicdrivein.com) adding some EV charging stalls.

EDIT: With some searching I found they already launched trials.

I can see a business model in setting up something like one of the large outdoor/weather resistant Japanese vending machines near a bank of chargers. Without staff.

https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+vending+machine+lar...

Here in Sweden I can count on my fingers the number of times I've filled up at a gas station with a store attached in the past several years. Most gas stations are unmanned and self service, and I assume they make money.

> Most gas stations are unmanned and self service, and I assume they make money.

After living and driving in Sweden for seven years, I'm fairly certain this isn't true.

Operating a gas station is expensive, so many will ditch the "gas" part.

Often the primary draw of gas stations is the gas, not the store, for which there are better alternatives. And since operating an EV-Charger is pretty easy & cheap compared to gas, there will be many stores adding EV-Chargers in the parking lot.

Here in germany, there are already a few supermarket chains (primarily ALDI) that have EV-Chargers on their parking lots.

I imagine the reason they make so much from the store is that the gas station is drawing people in? It's expensive to build and maintain the gas station itself, they wouldn't do it unless it was an important contributor to the business model.

I remember reading that 7/11 (popular gas station in the US) makes most of its money from purchases inside the convenience store and not gas. But nevertheless, the gas is probably the main reason why most people stop by anyway.

EVs are likely better for C-Stores like 7/11. People will have to wait longer more likely to shop, pick up food or some smokes.

I have noticed that Wawa (mid-atlantic convenience store often paired with gas station) is starting to set up a supercharger network, sometimes even when there is no gas station already existing.

Anecdotally, I agree with your assessment that EVs will cause more purchases.

I've never spent more than 5 minutes in a 7/11 in my life.

The point of those stores is to get in and get out quickly. It's the exact opposite of an EV charging station. In fact, most 7/11 in my area enforce the 'no loitering' rule.

I don't even think that 7/11 managers want you there for more than 5 minutes.

Restaurants or shopping malls I'll stay for 2 hours regularly, and a few level 2 chargers can actually get me 50 miles of charge in that time. That's where the EV chargers should be.

But you need more real estate for the same number of customers per day, so it's a trade off.

That's the case with pretty much every gas station. The station operator's margin on the gasoline itself is pretty close to zero.

Some 7-11s are gas stations in the USA, but most aren’t, so I’m not sure how to judge this claim. I definitely wouldn’t consider 7-11 to be a popular place for gas like chevron or shell.

Do you have the stats on this? I'm always surprised to see a 7-11 that is not a gas station and I have only seen it in very dense cities.

Anecdata here, but I live in America and had no idea 7-11 gas stations even existed until reading this thread. To me it’s always only been a convenience store.

This is really interesting. Would you mind saying what kind of place you live in? Rural, suburb, or dense city?

I live in a large city on the west coast, not particularly dense, though I feel like our definitions of “dense” may differ, to me dense evokes manhattan.

I’ve traveled through most of the western (ie west of the Rockies) United States and North east as well. It’s possible I’ve seen a 7-11 gas station and just don’t remember.

Thanks for sharing. I'm similarly in a city, similarly not super dense like Manhattan. But I'm East coast and most of my travels have been up and down this coast. I wonder if the difference is regional. Of course there's the good chance I'm just not very observant and pass by non-gas station 7-11s all the time.

In my experience, as Americans we tend to under appreciate the regional differences in the US, especially with chains that are familiar to us, so I think you’re probably correct.

Dunkin doughnuts vs Starbucks, Hardee’s vs Carl’s Jr., etc.

You can poll areas via https://www.7-eleven.com/locator#

In the Seattle area, it looks like 33/100 of the 7-11s have gas. For LA, it was 1/100. For Toledo Ohio, 1/10. For Dallas Texas, 50/100 it looks like.

This is purely anecdotal, but I live in Oslo where the majority of cars are now electric. I have seen no reduction in traffic to the neighboring Shell station in the past decade. As far as I know it doesn't offer charging, there are charging stations a few blocks away and this is in an urban area in our biggest city.

My guess is that their daytime customers are people dropping by for a quick bite when parking at a grocery store is too much effort. Stores aren't allowed to be open for the night, so the gas station doesn't have any competition for nighttime customers.

I think that as gas use dries up, gas stations will being installing charging stations (since it takes longer to charge up, it creates an even more captive market for their products in the store) (this of course is based on the idea that charging away from home will still be necessary, which I think it will be)

Circle K and Esso in Norway are already doing this.

A street in my town (in Canada) already has 4 gas stations and there are 3 new ones being built. Granted, it is close to a major highway... but 7 gas stations in a 2km stretch seems crazy to me, especially given the (seemingly) inevitable shift to EVs.

It's especially obnoxious given that remediation of gas stations sites after the fact is extremely expensive. Or at least has been, maybe they're being built to a higher standard now.

Sadly, that's rather common here in the US.

Here is a very good essay from a few years ago by Ben Evans [1] about the second order consequences of the electric cars.

[1] https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-s...

Your link 404'd for me.

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-s...

This will be the tipping point if it gets hard to find gasoline stations. I won't buy an EV until the very end as the technology is so basic right now. It has to improve and I think we need to get to the point of driving thousands of miles on one charge before it'll be wholly accepted.

They will turn into vending machines with a parking lot and bathroom.

Almost all gas stations across the nordics are self service and only sell gas.

Visiting America, I was completely flummoxed by attendants and tipping and other antiquated things.

This was coined “bullshit jobs” recently.

I think Norway probably points at where the rest of the world is slowly going to go.

Only sell gas? What? I've never ever seen a Norwegian gas station that doesn't have a small grocery store/kiosk attached, plus usually a cleaning hall etc.

https://electrek.co/2020/02/17/fuel-retail-chains-are-visiti... is another article on the same site talking about how gas stations are increasingly unmanned. There are over 100 unmanned uno-x in Norway, for example.

Sweden is even further ahead. I have to think hard to recall any Swedish stations near me of any brand that isn’t self service or has a shop. There are still some shops with statoil in Sweden, which is Norwegian… but so is ST1, which is entirely unmanned.

Your claim that "Almost all gas stations across the nordics are self service and only sell gas." is still wildly inaccurate. For Norway it seems to be roughly 10 % unmanned, and like I said, this is new to me so it is a fairly recent change.

And what happens to people in apartment complexes, and even more so, those who park on the street.

Oh, that's just "the poors", they can drive to a gas station 10 miles a way, I suppose.

New apartment buildings here in Norway have to have off street, usually underground parking, with charging facilities. Not much help to people who park their cars in the street but that is not so common here in Norway even in cities, most apartment complexes already have off street parking

Every time I read an EV discussion I see comments feigning concern for poor people, even though they are the demographic least likely to own cars at all.

If people are actually concerned about the poor, the conversation should be about good public transit, pedestrian and bike infrastructure-things that actually make a difference for people with less means.

Depends on the country I guess. In Poland poor people usually own cars, just very old and cheap ones, like 15 years old VW Golf with resale value of $500. There are very few people here who can't afford any car at all. If ICE cars are bannned completely, having to switch to extremely expensive EV will be a problem for them.

Of course, and it’s similar in the United States.

I’m not saying it’s not a matter of concern at all, it’s just that here in the US we’ve absolutely hamstrung all other modes of transportation besides cars, which is not helpful for poor people, not to mention all of the many other policies we have that adversely effect the poor.

It’s just in this one discussion that people come out of the woodwork suddenly proclaiming how terrible anti ice policies are for the poor, and never with any suggestion for compromise eg “if we do this, it would have an adverse effect on the poor, we could mitigate that with X”.

Therefore it’s hard to read it as anything other than disingenuous.

In the USA, millions of people live in apartments or rented houses, maybe park on the street, and would have no means to charge their cars where they customarily park.

Yes, we've got ourselves up a tree without a ladder on this issue.

yea, good bike costs as much as used car

And wait 1h on the side of the road that their car charges.

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