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Comment by asynchronous | Hacker News Reader

I actually think electric is one thing that could be squarely profitable for the small guy- think a small lot with solar panels or micro hydro and a few charging stations invested for much less than the cost of a house.

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People often have an unrealistic notion of what solar can do. A single 50kW charger would require 125 400w panels minimum - around 3000 square feet of area - and still only be able to provide max current for a few hours of the day. And 50kW is still slower than most people will tolerate if they’re not at home/work.

Fast chargers pull huge amounts of electricity requiring significant electrical connections and infrastructure that's pretty expensive to build up. You could provide level 1 or 2 chargers maybe on a DIY but even a single fast charger is going to need a LOT of solar and batteries to provide round the clock service.

As other people mentioned, the money of owning a gas station comes mostly from the convenience store attached to it. This isn't going away, quite the opposite. "Fast" charging is quite slow by gas station standards, which means more time for the drivers to go in and shop.

Sort of. Most people will charge at home, so there will be less of that style of store with chargers. Along highways and in busy rural areas you will still find them - for travelers and truckers, but overall there is less need.

Though there is still need for a store close to home where I can get a bit of milk quick, my morning donuts, and all the other things. I hope such stores move closer to where people live - suburban people should experience the big city convenience of walking to such places and when they don't have a hope of competing for drivers they may as well move closer to where people live. (if zoning allows!)

If you can afford to setup a charger fast enough to bring people in. They're not going to stop and browse your candy isle for 3 hours while your low wattage level 2 charger trickles 30 mph of charge into their batteries unless that's the only option available. Faster charging, even staying within the bounds of AC Level 2 charging, requires beefy connections to the electrical grid to support more than one or two charging points.

Many places will make the transition but you'll also need to change your interior to dedicate more space to people waiting while charging.

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