Not much. 15 years ago was 2010. Gas stations in 2025 are very similar to Gas stations from 2010. I doubt they will be too different in 2040. May be a few more EV chargers.
Mostly sells food and soft drinks, so hot dogs, fresh sandwiches, baked goods, with much more seating area so you can sit and eat while your car charges.
Has almost no car-related stuff, just one or two small sections of blinker fluid, wunder-baum and such.
And looking at the current trend, there will be far fewer of them, mainly located at strategic positions. The small, local gas stations will go away.
https://www.amazon.com/Blinker-Fluid-16oz-Great-Prank/dp/B07...
I remember I was impressed by this. The only country I drink gas-station-coffee is Finland (because where else can you find coffee in the middle of nowhere?). So right after I read that article, and the first time I saw a BP gas station I got a coffee. It was 'cheap' and I assume EUR per mg of caffeine was 'ok', but the quality/flavor.. omfg. Also, volcanic hot, so thanks but no thanks.
[0]: https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/433444/bp-doesnt-just...
With the hot-dogs, fries, pizzas, snacks, milk, cereal, alcohol (in some countries), they remind me of "The Profit" with Marcus Lemonis, where he is trying to use each square-inch from a retail store to sell stuff.
- now having larger buildings to incorporate more convenience products (mostly foodstuffs) for sale - more pumps
Today, every gas station is self-serve, and often you can pay by card at the pump.
50 years ago, plenty of gas stations still had attendants. One guy would fill the tank (possibly with 'leaded'), another might give your windshield a quick wipe. You could ask for them to check your oil, too.
Not too much has changed since the '80s though.
That’s definitely an innovation that creates convenience but does it really change the commercial function of the station much? You are still essentially transacting for fuel, which is what gas stations have done for decades. My guess is while a lot of stations provide that ability out of customer demand, but the owners would probably rather the customer come in and buy the over priced soda and Doritos along with the gas purchase. I don’t think owner-operators make hardly anything on the fuel sales.
With my comment I was thinking more along the lines of overall footprint of the station and what products are being sold. I think self-service pushed the ability for stations to service more pumps and with a person anchored to a register inside instead of outside attending to the pumps, it allowed the ability of stations to expand to more a mini-mart concept easily where more profitable products (to the station owner) are sold.
EV charging might help bring people into the food, but i suspect you don’t “turn tables” fast enough to make EV charging beneficial enough to bringing enough people inside to warrant devoting a lot of space to that activity.
And with the electric charging times people will certainly leave the car to shop for something.
So the exact opposite
North America has stuck to minimum of 1 staff at all times. No staff = closed.
Maybe that can change.
Not true at all at least in California. I regularly fill at unattended stations late at night past midnight. The credit card operated pumps are operable 24/7.
Years ago we were traveling in remote areas of Nevada and running out of gas around 2am, desperately trying to find a gas station (this is before mobile phones, so couldn't just look things up, although maybe even today might be too remote for signal). Finally rolled into a small village with a gas station but everything was dark, so we thought we'll take a nap there until whenever they open. But I noticed the pump light was on, so I gave it a try. Yes, it worked!
With cars lasting around 15 years, we can expect many gas stations to have closed by 2040.
Perhaps it can work well for certain commercial niches, time will tell.
But personally I agree it's perfect for, say, urban trains, with predictable maintenance. But if Japan keeps investing we may see more than that.
Here in Norway we just have had a handful of hydrogen stations, and of those two went out of business.
Meanwhile almost all new cars here are BEV, even out in many rural areas BEVs are 50% of new sales.
A local store can relatively easily and cheaply install a supercharger. Installing a hydrogen pump is presumably much more expensive as it requires more space and more complex equipment. And it needs refilling by truck, while electricty just flows.
And while EV chargers or cars can catch fire during charging, hydrogen can explode violently[1][2] when mixed with air (the one in Norway registered as an earthquake 30 km, 20 miles, away).
As I said perhaps it will find some niche uses, but widescale adoptation seems very unlikely to me.
[1]: https://norwaytoday.info/news/explosion-sandvika-hydrogen-ta...
[2]: https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/safety-concerns-gr...