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Comment by arcanemachiner | Hacker News Reader

> Why are gasoline stations mostly never broken and chargers broken all the time?

I mean... One of these technologies does have a 100 year head start on the other.

Still, I see a single "out of order" pump every once in a while and then a few days later it's working again. The question seems more "why are they allowed to stay broken?"

Because gas customers are greater in number, regular, more frequent, and higher paying. Just guessing.

Regardless, that's most likely leased spaces. If they don't make money, they lose money. And they seem to be off for a significant amount of time given that everyone seems to have a first hand story about it.

That's true, but I doubt people charging their car represent the bulk of their income. The government pays companies to build new stations. Fixing old ones means your techs are tied up, and you're able to bid on fewer projects, which means less revenue. Again, I'm guessing, but it seems like a decent explanation.

Why is government paying subsidies to build charging stations? Must imply they are not a profitable endeavor to begin with. Otherwise entrepreneurs would be all crawling over for the opportunity. If there is no money in it, it will be left to rot.

Green energies in general are heavily subsidized, whereas conventional fossil fuels are heavily taxed. Without these measures, there would be no transition to alternative power sources, because economically they are nonsensical.

> whereas conventional fossil fuels are heavily taxed

Hahaha... I wish.

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...

> fossil-fuel subsidies rose by $2 trillion over the past two years as explicit subsidies (undercharging for supply costs) more than doubled to $1.3 trillion

You you talking about electricity or gasoline?

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