some of them could be turned into bus stations- there’s space under canopies to protect passengers from the weather, the buses wouldn’t obstruct traffic to load and unload, and the convenience stores could also sell tickets!
A new highway was built around my hometown and it killed 2 gas stations. Both of the closed stations became restaurants, they kept the massive carport roof over the pumps, it became a sheltered patio. It wasn’t chain restaurants that moved into these spaces, they are local, community hubs now.
Truck stops have already been adding fitness facilities. If you're an over-the-road truck driver, it's not the healthiest occupation and it's virtually impossible to exercise. It's not exactly well advised to take a morning stroll down your nearest on-ramp. I expect we'll see more fitness facilities be installed as time goes on.
Gas stations need huge space and lot's of time to recharge. Gas stations need little time but more money and more vehicle's. Here in India I ride only bicycle and other's at home too ❤️👍💞🇮🇳
The benefit of chargers over gas stations is you can build them anywhere you normally park. So in the future chargers will be mostly located where we already park our cars for long periods. Home, work, restaurants, shopping, etc. For gas stations, the urban and suburban ones are generally in good locations so the land will be redeveloped for other uses. For the ones on highways, they’ll probably add chargers because for long road trips you still need somewhere to take a break from driving.
The problem is that the driver needs to have something to do. And that must also take weather into account. Cafés and fastfood are good fit, especially with a 15 minutes supercharger. They would keep on selling car related things and services because people might like to check their tire, clean their car or their windows, fill their windshield washer etc. to maximise their time and get into the idea that while their trip is longer, they are saving time later in the future when these things will be an additionnal chore that takes some leisure time at home. If I was a small town, I would fill these places with visitor informations to make travellers come back in the future knowing what there is around.
That's exactly how it is done in Norway. High wattage power supplies for the car's internal charger (mode 3) at malls, public parking lots, workplaces etc. Superchargers and similar proper fast chargers at highway rest stops.
My only concern is there is a margin added to non-home charging which makes the renter life even more expensive if they can't charge at home. The charging rates at ChargePoint stations are easily double what you can charge at home with.
I’m not a drinker, and agree with you in principle. However, if most cars are fully self-driving by then (as many are predicting will be the case), drunk driving will no longer be an issue.
Definitely a BAD idea to mix Alcohol and driving. The bigger sites could be converted to multi story car parks though. As parking space is ALWAYS an issue. Tack on charging and a cafe/7-11 and its win - win.
I envision the Cafe-charger as being a huge thing in the near future. Places like Starbucks, Second Cup, and Tim Hortons are perfect places to implement charging infrastructure with their large parking lots (where I live) and long sit times since people sit in with a meal or drink and lounge around anyways. I know I'd utilize these if I had an electric car since I'm at those places anyways even without a EV
@@annamariasnodderly5958 Basically the rest stops that already exist. Between a bathroom break and a meal, cars that charge as fast as the new Ioniq 5 wouldn't even be a big deal.
Fuel station operators don’t make as much as in refuelling as people may think. Slim margins on fuel and steep escrow deposits to maintain the fuel delivery coming regularly. Money is inside the convenience store. EV recharging, if done efficiently , could be a bonanza to fuel station operators. If they spend CAPEX on added recharge capacity and speed , they could actually come out in a better financial shape.
Lol. Where do you get the money to repurpose with 2% margins. The reality of repurposing will happen. Just start with bankruptcy. Then the next guy will invest and repurpose and clean the land.
@@ken90017 under that scenario, then the franchiser /fuel supplier will buy out the operator. Or the property goes out to bidding as I’ve seen on Ten-X
Here in Portland an old gas station was converted into a really nice laundromat. They even roll up the garage doors on nice days to hang out while waiting out the spin cycle.
@@dhuryodhankaurav8487 gas stations make a significant amount of money in store. The amount of people actually going in the stores will decrease as there's no guarantee that a car coming to the lot to charge actually has any people in it.
@@dhuryodhankaurav8487 unless I’m on a long trip, I would definitely send my car to to gas station alone with no one in it, and therefore spend no money in the store
A few things on my mind: Over 90% of car sales are still ICE, these cars will be on the road for 10-40 years still and will need to be filled, so these stations won't go away that soon. There have been times when I would visit stations for reasons other than filling up: car wash, using the ATM, delivery lockers, and them offcourse shops. Some these services might go away or move location, but I am sure property owners will be able to monetise them. One can also turn these into charging hubs for taxis, busses, trucks. And maybe, just maybe, in the future, they will be used as air taxi ranks.
@@kevinkaaz7720 That is because cars weren't built to the same standard as they are now, and the cars that were built to such a standard (such as early toyota hilux's) are often still around.
I had a stewarts rip out the pumps near me years ago. They did fine until a new bigger stewarts was built that sold gas. Was another stewarts that also had no pumps but the new stewarts was between the other two along with being on a major road. So the two stewarts without gas lost out because it was just easier to go to the new stewarts and it had gas. What I was getting at is we could see only locations in actually good locations survive.
Gas stations will not go away completely in the next 50-60 years, but what we may see in 20 years is more charging stations than gas pumps. Gas Pumps may be 2-4 in number, with 1-2 diesel pumps, and 8-30 charging stations.
A gas stations very convenient location could be repurpose for general logistical uses. They are often very convenient located for trucks to get to and back to the main roads.
Indeed. Though, it's going yo be a while longer before most trucks go electric, so those ones might actually keep selling gasoline, at least for a while.
@@laurencefraser Actually a lot of the bigger companies are converting to electric right now and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the older ones were turned into hybrids.
@@KRYMauL here in the Netherlands there is a truck company that is even testing out trucks that drive on compressed air. (for now only on garbage trucks). the bonus in that is that the refuelling is very fast. Even faster then diesel. there is no waist product safe from just air. and the fact that when the tank is emptying out the total weight goes down as well. (a problem you do have with battery power)
Most that I see already are like that. In Europe most trucks are much more basic and don't have any ammenities. Those are provided by those gas stations as they offer parking and usually a shower and hot meals.
Freeway gas stations usually have a problem with the capacity of their electricity connections because they are in the middle of nowhere. They may have good location for road trip charging, but improving the grid connection may be very expensive.
That’s why most high power chargers have their own battery underground or nearby and they trickle charge from the grid. Even when the capacity is there they still do it because it lands them lower peak usage fees from the utilities.
@@kaitlyn__L That sounds like it would just accelerate to us reaching the battery problem. The problem being we will reach a point where we won't be able to produce enough batteries. Since is limited amount of material to produce batteries.
@@domehammer stationary batteries can use very common materials so that really isn't a problem. A stationary battery doesn't care about weight or size, just efficiency and not catching on fire which makes lithium terrible for stationary battery storage.
The thing is, is that by the time EVs are THIS widespread, we will likely see battery charging times greatly reduced to the point where they could be very similar to gas stations.
its not gonna be until the 50's when all cars on the road will be electric!, and by then we will find solutions to all current EV problems! if you asked me 5 years ago if an electric car will do 300+ and charge 100 miles in 5 minutes and to 80% in LESS than 20 minutes, i would've just laughed! the fact that the IONIQ 5 75kwh is around $45k and does 300 miles per charge, charges to 80% in 18 minutes and 100 miles in 5 minutes shows that EVs have the potential to beat ICE cars in range and even how far you can drive per minute of refueling in some cases!
Old gas stations that can’t upgrade to electric charge stations-Convert into banking cafes. (C’mon Capital One!) And for the ones that can upgrade, I hope to see what we have in Dallas: A Half Price Bookstore with a row of electric charger parking places. People hang around bookstores for at least 20 minutes. Add a cafe and a place to play boardgames and you have a winning combination.
I think gas stations, in 10-15 years, will begin to look like the Buc-ee's in Texas as we figure out an EV car culture but you took hit the nail on the head. I agree with all of your points.
Depends on where you live honestly, if you live in rural Kansas for instance where electric cars are EXTREMELY rare (like one in a million) I don't see electric charging stations being normalized until 2040+ as I've honestly only seen one of such stations and it was in a city an hour and a half away. Cool with me, the cars are insanely overpriced for what you get.
My theory is that most gas stations that exist now will do one of 2 things: convert to mass EV charging stations, or become convenience stores that just don't sell gas.
Those along highways will probably be one of those two options, but I feel most will not convert as they'll slowly fade away, but new locations with EVs in mind will also pop up.
A lot of people don't have the disposable income for an electric car. I bought my car 8 years ago for $3000 and that was a huge purchase, and it is a 2001 model. I don't know what I would do if it broke down. The concept of an electric vehicle is entirely theoretical to me. I would love one, but it isn't something I can ever do. Gas vehicles aren't leaving the road any time soon.
EVs are seen as expensive today but that is largely because all anyone hears about is the cost of a brand new EV. Brand new cars of any type are quite expensive. A decade from now, there will be lots of used EVs available. Today you can find a used 2013 Nissan LEAF for less than $5000, although it will have a limited range since it is the earliest version of the car.
I feel this comment strongly. I had to reach deep to pull out a couple grand for my last car, and I would love an EV, if nothing more than that there's less moving parts in them for something to go wrong, but until they filter down through the secondary market to become that cheap, I'm stuck with an IC engine for probably another decade. In the meantime I'm working on my cycling range to be less dependent on my car.
@@joeb4294 Old evs are not good used cars saying high milage or time. If someone on a tight budget gets one the batterys and complexity of keeping it going when a wiring or electrical problem occurs then goodbuy car. There incredibly expensive to maintain when there over 10 years old.
@@codysmith9813 I don't think that we know that yet. We are just now starting to see 10-year old used EVs. The first model year for the LEAF was 2011, the first model year for the Model S was 2012. Regardless, these early cars will not be representative of used EVs in the long run because they were early iterations; companies have improved manufacturing of these cars and their batteries over the last decade.
The critical thing to keep in mind is the big difference between refilling a gas car vs an electric car. With EV's you charge at home and every day when you leave it's basically like leaving with a full tank of gas. So for most of us we pretty much never charge up away from home. The longer "road trips" scenario is when you would charge, and that's when you would want to use DC Fast Charging, which is going to take you 30-45 minutes to get to an 80% charge. Gas cars we just drive them and drive them until the low gas light comes on, then we stop at a gas station, and 5-10 minutes later you're 100% full and back on the road. If you regularly drive more than 150 miles per day, an EV might not be the best choice but it all depends on your situation. The real problem with EV adoption is... what about those that cannot charge at home? The apartment dwellers, and the people that only have street parking. If they have level 2 chargers available at work they'll be ok, but if they don't then idk, they can use DC Fast Charging, but they're charging to 80%. If you have a car with a 150 mile range you're really just charging it to 120 miles. If you drive the average 12k miles per year, you'd be visiting the fast charger just about every other day, which would be kind of annoying.
Less annoying if the charger is located somewhere you'd want to be anyway, of course. The supermarket, that restaurant that serves particularly good breakfasts st a decent price, the games/comic shop you and your buddies hang out at for several hours a couple of times a week anyway, the movie theater*, and so on. This could potentially have the bonus advantage of breaking up rush hour a bit, ad people take different routes to different places to stop different lengths of time (minimum of however long a charge cycle is) on their way to or from work. Obviously, there's a lot of vague hand waving to be found in those thoughts, but it's worth looking into! *Actually, given that these are slowly starting to die out, there might arguably be a market to bring back the drive-in movie theater... That is also a charging station. Arguably you'd want to show shorter movies... Though if people are stopping in every day on their way to or from work anyway there's room for showing what amount to tv shows! Still, yu couldn't just show the same movie at the same time every day, or on the sane day if the week several weeks in a row, if you're expecting people to stop in regularly as part of their commute...
Yes. In Norway some of them have re-branded themselves as energy stations(energy for both you and the car), so they don't die, they're just reborn as something better.
New use for closed stations: small parks, and branch libraries (my local library is doing a good job of staying relevant). Larger facilities could become local theater. And if it's redeveloped with neighboring properties, the sky's the limit.
I think I'd be in the 30% that wants their next car to be electic. I want my parent's next car to be electic too! But lack of charging infrastructure is a huge concern. In the 1900s did gas stations precede car sales driving the demand? Or did car sales drive the demand for gas stations? Are we seeing similar effects with EVs?
EVs are different because you can fuel them up at home overnight. I've been driving an electric car for 3 years, and I have charged it away from home probably less than 10 times, and that's only because there was a parking space offering free electricity and I'm not going to turn that down. I do a lot of driving for work but the 200 miles of range I can put in my battery overnight in my own garage is enough to cover my needs. I will readily admit that I don't take long road trips and I don't have to park on the street, those are obstacles that need to be overcome for broader EV adoption, but I would say probably half of the private car owners in America park in their own garages at night and drive less than 100 miles a day, they would need zero additional public infrastructure to begin using an electric car today.
In the early 1900s cars were more of something you alone took care of, you had to be the mechanic and you were also responsible for buying your own gasoline. There also were not (car centric) highways and people did not use cars to move significant distances, that was the purpose of trains and/or ships. In the modern world people would hate to be stranded on a long range road trip without an EV charging station, and unlike with gasoline powered cars you cannot exactly take extra gasoline with you just in case.
I actually had this conversation with my dad the other day. I concluded that the pumps would gradually be replaced with charging stations and the convenience stores with something more appropriate for relaxing for an hour or so, maybe something like a cafe.
I still like the idea that there becomes a back queue of precharged batteries that just get changed out by robotic gas Islands through some industry standard battery fitting. Saves alot of time and probably safer.
So like EVs having 2 sets of batteries in case the first set is about to deplete? If so, that would be very convenient since you still have power for your EV and you can charge the depleted batteries for when they come to use soon.
Some people also just are not ok with waiting at these gas stations for an extended period of time. I don't want to make a 15 hour road trip into a 24+ hour road trip. Long distance trips are the biggest obstacle for EV's to overcome in my opinion. Until I can top off a battery in a similar amout of time it takes to fill a gas tank, I'm going to pass.
The Tesla Supercharger network already solves this at least for Tesla owners. Fully charges in 30 minutes and you're not going to be at 0% when you reach a charger anyway so it takes about 10-15 minutes at a rest stop. It maybe adds 30 minutes to your trip depending on how far you're going. My last trip to Vegas is 400 mi and it didn't add any time since I usually need to hit the bathroom at some point anyway. There are a ton of RU-vid videos of people taking road trips in their Teslas. The road trip charging concerns are overblown.
I think even worse is how to recycle tons of exhausted batteries. Electric cars are cool because they don't burn fossil fuels (unless you're recharging from electric energy generated by burning coal) and because they're silent. In one hand, electric motors are way more efficient than internal combustion engines (90%+ against 35-50% tops) but the loss on electric transmission lines is around 40-50% depending on the distance. To have electric cars with efficient electricity sources, we should also switch to home photovoltaic cells or wind turbines (which aren't very efficient but better in higher latitudes) and eventually in the (maybe near) future, to Thorium-based power plants.
Even taking transmission loss into account, you're still making gains on miles-to-polution-generated by switching to electric, even using Coal plants, which are pretty awful, due to scaling factors in the generation process. Heck, if I understand correctly, just dumping the fuel that would have gone into car engines into a properly designed power plant instead of an individual engine per vehicle would make a huge difference. (Bad as it is, it's better than coal!) Microgeneration actually loses some of those benefits again. Photovoltaic cells have the same disposal issue as batteries (well, different chemicals, same problem though). Wind is not particularly reliable in most places. Nuclear has a Lot of issues surrounding the existence of nuclear weapons to deal with (both the desire for the military to have materials for nuclear weapons, and the desire to then Not let anyone Else have said materials, for obvious reasons), and has the issue that, if an accident Does occur, about the only thing worse, depending how you measure it, is being directly down stream from a hydro electric dam that has just suffered a catastrophic failure. Now, obviously, this is vanishingly unlikely with a properly designed, built, maintained, and protected power plant... But really, the USA can't even maintain its highways, bridges, and storm drains reliably. It's far from unheard of to be able to get into the secure parts of nuclear missile silos by pretending to be a pizza delivery guy. For most people, that sort of thing seems like a bad gamble the odds of failure are low, but not zero, and the consequences extreme. Mind you, if anyone ever cracks a practical Fusion generator (rather than fission), it's my understanding that most of the catastrophic failure states become much less... Catastrophic... For the surrounding... Er... Everything. (On an interesting side note, on a day to day basis, Coal plants irradiate their surroundings more than nuclear plants do, as they have little or nothing in the way of measures to actually prevent this.) Improvements are, obviously, always desirable, of course.
EV car batteries usually lasts about a decade. Would still say that getting around by cars less is better, be it fossil-fuel powered and manually-controlled or electric-battery-powered and fully autonomous.
I’d highly recommend reading up on all the startups developing battery recycling technologies. (Which are better than just burning them and ending up with lithium slag.) Thankfully once they’re too used up for cars they can still provide home backup power for another few decades. So there’s plenty of time for the R&D, which is already progressing at a great rate. Some are projecting 90%+ metals extraction, which can be used to make brand new batteries again.
As an EE i quick correction to your electricity efficiency. Overall efficiency is multiplicative so for an EV it would be generation x transmission x charging x driving. Electrical transmission is near perfect at 95% efficient (losses is resistance times current squared, higher voltage lowers current for same power, hence we use very high voltages). Generation on the other hand sucks because of the laws of thermodynamics, specifically for the closed loop power cycle, the absolute best efficiency is based on the temperature of the hot source (how hot the fire is) and the temperature of the cold sink (how cold the air/river/lake is) and for practical plants it comes to about 35% for thermal power plants (coal, nat gas, nuclear, concentrated solar, ect). The end result is the grid is basically 1/3 efficient overall in the US. Other generation sources have different efficiencies or we don't really care. Like for hydro perfect efficiency is the flow rate and head drop but its also a river so the "fuel" is basically free. Likewise for wind, we care about individual turbine efficiency but at the end of the day wind is free fuel. As we move away from thermal plants we will finally see the grid efficiency rise but for now 2/3 of the energy content of fossil fuels is lost to get to the outlet, mainly in the power plant itself because of unavoidable physics.
Question though: what's the difference between a gas station with a pub, and a pub with chargers for customer use in the parking lot? I mean, you've got a point, obviously, but with the change in infrastructure, the difference becomes a bit arbratrary. Also, how is one defining a Pub? Because in some times and places it's meant a full inn, or small hotel, that is licensed to sell alcohol. And/or a restaurant (which, depending on the neighborhood and thus clientele, it's perfectly reasonable to take your kids to, at least once they're old enough that one can reasonabley expect them to behave well enough not to bother the other patrons). Not necessarily something you want at a highway rest stop (unless it has much stricter licensing terms regarding who gets served how much under what circumstances, at least), but other wise quite reasonable.
I think we should target alcohol in the war on drugs and kill, torture, or arrest people who choose to abuse alcohol. The drug makes you aggressive and psychotic. It's worse than heroin or crack 🌈
SLO has a long history of being ahead on urban planning like limiting drive thrus. They can and should ramp up superchargers. I used to walk to that same 7-11 every day in high school. 😄
I’ve owned a Model 3 for 2 1/2 years and have driven it 49,000 miles all around North America, including out to Halifax and up to Edmonton. Almost all of my charging is at my apartment. I think most people who are trepidatious about owning an EV for fear of lack of finding charging locations don’t understand this. Tesla superchargers at Wawa, Sheetz, Kum & Go, Irving Oil, etc. are really great spots. I spend far more money at these locations than I ever did with an ICE car because I don’t feel time crunched. I have plenty of time to browse or grab a snack. My favorite supercharger locations, however, are restaurants. I love getting a meal and coming back to my car at nearly 100% battery with no wasted time. In the future I imagine these Highway-side DC fast charging locations will include convenience stores, restaurants, and even souvenir shops. The “urban” 72kW chargers even lend themselves to being able to catch a movie. These work great at malls or other places people spend 45 minutes to a few hours. There’s a convenience store & deli where I live that posts its DC fast charging rates per kWh right next to its gas prices. I think that’s a look into what convenience stores look like near-term.
I'm all for gas stations being replaced by charging spots, and the charging spots becoming what amounts to rest stops. I think it's a great model. I definitely do *not* think that a brew pub should be one of the destinations for, you know, drivers....
How is that different than any other restaurant people go and eat at? I imagine many restaurants especially in strip malls will have charging stations.
Here in Japan the government is investing billions in establishing hydrogen infrastructure. It’s a win for the gas companies because they can convert not only the gas stations but also extraction and logistics infrastructure. I think the expectation here is that gas stations will do both ev charging and pump hydrogen
the market has, effectively, already decided that battery-electric vehicles will be the main source of vehicle power. Hydrogen may be an effective fueling method for large commercial vehicles, but it is unlikely you or I will drive a commercial-scale hydrogen car in the next 50 years.
@@edwardwilliams9185 Sure, but it doesn't need to be the only one. We had leaded, unleaded and diesel fuel for a long time. And Hydrogen will make sense for many of the same cases as diesel - trains, long haul trucks and buses. I don't think it's going to be just one technology - a range of climate friendly choices is a good thing. Point is there is no market yet for hydrogen because it needs infrastructure that EU and Japan are building but isn't ready yet. Will be interesting to see what happens when it arrives. But yes, I love the battery EVs that are finally taking off now after decades of false starts, and lots of advantages with batteries including conversion efficiency and performance.
FYI Herbert Diess of VW just agreed with Musk that hydrogen is wrong for for cars. "... because the physics behind it are so unreasonable" which is the same rationale used by Musk.
That is because Japan have big reserves of Methane hidrate underwater that it's hopping to tap into when the technology allow to extract it. But between Japan, USA and Europe, Japan should be the easiest to turn into full electric while USA is the one where H2 fit better.
Not only that, but I think once porsche get their synthetic fuel sorted, that will also become another part of a petrol station, as the infrastructure is already there, and regular old ICEs can run on it without any mods. To be honest though, Cities should be building more cycle paths and making themselves more walkable, instead of banking on electric cars to solve the environmental problem.
Make them public bathrooms! Maybe even paid, well-maintained, fully featured bathrooms. A lot of the time that's what I'm really looking for when I pull over on a long trip. Also, not looking forward to so much more of a hassle to refill an electric car in the future, hopefully they keep improving that.
No IMO, you'll start seeing both at the same station (large franchises); gas will have it's own separate area from electric since refilling and recharging times are different. And I can see shopping malls having parking space exclusively for electric vehicles recharging.
Here in high desert near Victorville, CA, along hwy 15 to Las Vegas, NV, we have a mall, multiple Super Walmarts, hotels, truck stops, gas stations, and restaurants with fast charging stations in the parking lots.
5:11 I think gas stations along interstates are actually in a very good position to convert to EV fast charging stations for people doing roads trips. Gas stations in towns will have to convert to standalone convenience stores.
Tax the rich and stop giving them too many tax break and making us do most of the bulk of the work which one reason our infastructure have a grade of D
@@USSAnimeNCC- yeah, if they taxed Ellon musk and all his investors more, they’d just raise the prices of their EVs, charging stations, and other products/services. Same thing with literally every other rich person who owns a business. Tax always end ups reflecting on the consumers and all of us. I’m not even American, but my country has more taxes than any other country and they are quite high, they tax you for everything. The only thing they achieve is people stopping paying taxes bc they either can’t afford it or they don’t want to bc they are outrageous. And it’s not like rich people pay their super high taxes, they just take their money away from the country, open an account or multiple ones somewhere else and bc there are taxes they can’t avoid they just rise prices. People like you don’t realize how cheap everything is in America compared to the rest of the world, people in my country literally travel to Miami just to go shopping and buy clothes, phones, computers, tablets (specially apple products bc we don’t have an official apple store, and bc import taxes are high af, everything is 10 times more expensive than the original apple price) and while they are there they also go to Disney world a couple days and all the other parks lol
Fun fact. When USSR city planners wanted to build metro in Riga, they reserved some land spots for stations. Since metro was never built, after independence most of those spots became fuel stations due to their location and size.
I've been watching gas stations go out of business for the past four decades. Many of them haven't been profitable even long before electric vehicles came along. And I don't just mean those bad ideas out in ghost towns - there are several in my hometown that can seem to stay in business with access to nearly a hundred thousand local customers and a major interstate highway.
This is actually pretty common in Norway already, most gas stations have gas pumps, of course, but also a few charging stations. They've shifted their focus a bit as a cafe, or fast food joint to have people hang out while they wait.
For anyone familiar enough with the regional influence of Sheetz and WaWa, those are surely the future. They already commonly have Tesla charging ports, and can accommodate a longer stay than, say, a 7-Eleven.
Only thing that WAWA would need to do is buikd indoor/outdoor seating for customers to wait while their car charges. WAWA is putting small gas stations out of business in my city. 7-Eleven gas stations and Raceway are the only ones who are staying in business.
I don't want to stay long at a gas station. Get my gas, maybe grab a drink and a snack. Would be infuriating needing to wait 20-30 minutes for car to charge at a charging station.
Where I live (Vic., Australia) most servos are big chains - we've accumulated a lot of disused, small petrol stations already over the last two or three decades, especially in outer suburban and rural areas where there are now super service stations on newer highways and bypasses. They usually stay derelict for a long time - there's a lot of remediation needed before the site can be used, depending on what's replacing it
Best use for defunct gas stations that I have seen, is in Germany, where they are often repurposed as a Trinkhalle: a retail outlet for drinks of all kinds (but mainly beer). Here, it is very convenient to pull in a load up with a few crates of your favorite brew.
@@jefflewis4 I commented on that on another site and what I got was that the law in NJ (not sure about OR) only deals with gas stations and not charging stations, not yet?🤷♂️ So, people there can charge their own vehicles, but I haven't been to NJ in a few years, even before all this mess, so I don't think I've seen charging stations over there. I still remember the first time I saw a charging station, it was a Tesla charging station (probably a supercharger?) in like 2015 or there abouts and it was all by itself, I didn't know what it was (I remember I took a picture of it), but I had already heard of Tesla for a few years, but it felt more like a background thing, y'know? But, in 2019 that same parking lot is now full of them and Electrify America has several charging stations in the parking lot of a McD's in the exact opposite side where those superchargers are, so I'd be covered if I were to just go grocery shopping and owned a plug-in hybrid or fully electric car.
In metro areas, there won't be a gas station as we know it. It is simply too easy (and profitable) for any place to install a charger in their parking lot. By and large, they will just blend back into the landscape as a restaurant or bar. Out in the country, we are a long way away from people being done using gasoline.
My home town(Petaluma CA) just banned the construction of all new gas stations. I couldn't be more proud that we took the jump in the right direction first.
Honestly I think most of them would work great for fast food restaurants that let you sit in your car/order/eat while they charge. Especially for smaller gas stations with not much land area. Though I do like the idea of getting out of the car and being around other people (post-Covid)
I worked in a reclaimed gas station. It was repurposed into professional offices (lawyers, appraisers, and surveyors took residence) because of its location near down town. It was actually quite nice.
I think gas stations would be great for infill development. They generally are located in high traffic areas with only a small part of the lot actually built up with the convenience store. They also could make for good shaded public space, as once the pumps are removed you have a shaded outdoor space.
Gas stations can be reused as ghost kitchens doing delivery and takeaway. In the US most are positioned in very good locations along road networks anyway and they have a lot of space to park. It's a good way to leverage the location to get food to nearby communities hot and fast and create an economy of gig workers delivering food on electric bicycles or electric motorcycles.
There's all this talk of 'repurposing', but honestly, if you're building something like a ghost kitchen in the middle of nowhere, land is usually so cheap and construction costs are usually quite low that it's usually easier and cheaper to just build exactly what you want from scratch.
To your question regarding the picture of the funny looking car in Norway, that's a Buddy car, an electrical vehicle. I've seen them throughout the years in Oslo, but it's rare to see them these days.
As the EV owner now with some first hand experience of this I've thought about that relation to gas stations. I would love to see the land use adapt in new ways as the gas stations on every corner is pretty dreary suburbanism. I love the fact that EV charging can integrate into existing parking lots with little fanfare, since either people will see it while parking for other purposes or they'll use apps to find them instead of the big light-up signs. That said EV charging is still a wild west and it can be frustrating to navigate. I encounter faulty chargers way more than I've encountered faulty gas pumps. I've encountered many chargers with *business hours* despite being self-serve. Either the machines shut off at night or the lot closes at night. And I have seen Tesla already start putting EV charging "stations" which makes me cynical that as EVs replace all ICEVs we'll need to have full stations again to accommodate. So it's still good to keep disincentivizing car usage. Also I'd love for convenience stores to become common place without needing the gas pumps. The sheer number of them in Japan made them truly live up to their name of "convenience".
@Chronic Blast The car I had was not connected to the internet so that was not an issue for me. It was just a quieter less breakable car for someone who already did not like cars. Anyways I've moved and no longer drive at all where mass transit is way more efficient. Or even better, walking or biking.
@Chronic Blast No idea. I don't have a lot of faith in highways that get clogged on normal days anyways. I've seen the congestion in the California fires. Even if I did leave I've no idea where to go. I'm already on the government (or corporate) grid. I'm using electricity and internet to post this.
In australia there are politicians in australia that want to put a tax on electric cars, before these cars have a chance to become more popular and established, talk about disincentivizing people from buying electric vehicles.
A carbon tax? Nooo. That would punish people for living! EV tax? Why, that’s just an innocent way to ensure the Coalition’s donors don’t go out of business!
What I dislike is that adding car chargers a bit everywhere makes it more difficult to remove those parking spots in the future. It's like we're fully committed to the car culture even though we know the issue isn't about gas or electric, it's about having too many personal cars taking too much space. EVs change absolutely nothing to that. However if it comes with better/cheaper car-sharing systems, and more parks everywhere (with less need for gas stations) then that could be a good start.
Not exactly. As a refrigeration mechanic I was involved in R&d the Aust. Army bought a battery technology to me and said the new service stations will exchange old electrolyte out of cars. The battery is the new fuel tank and the old fluids will be recharged by solar or via the grid. REDFLOW battery is the house equivalent. The cars are being tested. This was 2006
This video doesn’t mention how self driving cars which reduces car ownership can battery swap fast. Gas stations in the urban areas will be converted. Stations usually reduce desirability and create NIMBYs. The rural areas will likely go abandoned.
there is no evidence that self driving cars reduces car ownership, not in my city where self driving cars have been available. removing the driver hasn't changed taxi cabs or ubers and doesn't reduce car ownership but does increase pollution and congestion due to dead heading.
I can still buy horse feed & its been over 100 years since they were the primary method of transportation. Gas stations arent going way, plenty of people will still drive gas powered cars, tractors, lawnmowers, trucks, etc etc etc.
I worked in a Domino's that was once a tiny downtown service station, 2 bays and an office the size of a third. It was interesting being in such a tiny, cramped workspace.
A great use would be turning them into neighborhood farmers markets and internet hubs. Especially in urban areas that are food deserts and have limited access to high speed internet.
EV charging, better coffee, Amazon shipping and pick up, FedEx UPS and US mail, restaurants, laundromat, car vacuums next to the charging stations, , small exercise places can all be added to the convenience stores that used to sell gas so people have things to do while their car charges.
I was thinking about this very thing lately. I live in a small, older city that has good bones but became very car-dependent along with the rest of America. I currently live about 200 feet from a small, locally-owned gas station, and while I occasionally stop there for gas, I love it more for grabbing eggs and milk! I hope as gas stations become less necessary, they can maybe expand slightly and become a much-needed corner store. Perhaps they could even add a milkshake counter or a small coffee shop; there would be plenty of room for an outdoor patio. It would be so lovely to have something like that just down the street!
There's a good strip of nothing but gas stations running continuously for 2 miles in my home town. We could tear down their pumps and parking, and convert the front of every property into a dedicated, protected bike lane so cyclists wouldn't have to ride in the highway. The rest can become stores, cafes, parks, and otherwise places for human beings with some charging stations here and there. A legacy station or two will likely continue to be needed to support older vehicles. An important thing to remember is, even though in America, almost everyone has a car, everyone didn't necessarily pay full price for one. The abundance of cars has one small economic bonus, and that is a huge secondary market. A large portion of Americans drive cars that are over 10 or even 20 years old, because they can buy them at a small fraction of the price of a new car. That however also means slower adoption of EVs, because EVs need time to not only become widespread in the new market, but also time to filter down into the secondary market.
An entertaining counter point to that claim (and others like it) is to list off all the industries created or revived by millennials. The modern board game industry, for example. I remember something about there actually being a market for what amounts to cobblers again (in the USA, I believe it was) as people ran the numbers and realized they're better off shelling out for the expensive, custom or semi-custom made (better fit and style), higher quality, often locally made, shoes that can take more abuse and last a lot longer before they need replacing, rather than buying mass produced garbage that needs replacing 5 times as often or more, is routinely overpriced, and is made in a different country entirely.
One of the other problems will be the EV charging capabilities themselves. As they improve, the stations having built business plans that rely on people waiting around will ultimately fall behind. Will this not be like the wait calculation problem in terms of space travel. When do business owners decide to jump in and set the infrastructure up for EV charging just to possibly be old tech in 5 years never regaining their investment fully. Someones gotta be first and set the stage no matter what.
“Apu’s character on the simpsons may be pretty problematic” Dude, just stop. The characters are meant to fit stereotypes to give us something funny and relatable. You said yourself the character has truth behind him. No one ever made a thing about Groundskeeper Willie...
If Tim Hortons, Canada's biggest coffee-donuts-quicklunch chain started doing EV charging in their suburban and small town stores, Canada would become like Norway in just a few years.
What would I do with gas stations that cannot convert to charging hubs or similar? How about making them one or two room schools? They already have the bathrooms, the wide open rooms with good lighting. Some have mini-kitchens for lunch prep. The parking area could partially be converted to a playground.
I say don't remove the iconic ones especially along Route 66. Otherwise renovate and convert old stations into something new with incentives to help boost the local economy. Imagine someone purchase and turned a gas station into a brewing building and has a contract with a restaurant that was once also a restaurant.
“You see signs at gas stations that say no cell phones. Here's the deal: Cell phone batteries can explode, which would be a real danger if that happens while you're pumping gas. What you need to be concerned about is static electricity. If you are pumping gas, and walk away from the pump, and say, get back into your car, you can build up static electricity, and when you touch the nozzle again, you can actually ignite the vapors. There aren't any verifiable incidents of a cell phone causing a fire at a gas station; a gas station is a "class one" area. That means there are explosive vapors (not fumes). Under National Fire Protection Association rules, you're not supposed to use electronic materials at gas pumps. Fire codes say you can't use a cell phone there.” Source: CBS News
Until that Kyoto massacre, I did not know how fucking dangerous petrol is. Two canisters can set ablaze an entire building in seconds. Gas stations may nowadays not have frequent accidents but they still are objectively madness.
Excellent video. Perhaps in the robo-taxi future when cars drive themselves and nobody actually needs to *own* a vehicle, gas stations can be charging parking lots for the cars while they wait for their next customer. They’re already placed along high-traffic areas. But the death of the gas station will likely happen far before the rise of robo-taxis.
Robo-taxi future will literally never happen due to the risk of the previous user having taken a dump in your ride. Nobody is going to want that, they will pay the thousands of dollars it takes to own a car in order to avoid it.
Good one. My vision is that everyplace you would ever park will off EV car charging. Instead of the model of filling up at the end of your tank (battery), you'll just top off anywhere you go. For long distance travel, restaurants, hotels, and any roadside stop or attraction needs to have level-3 charging so you can spend some time, and some money, and leave with a full charge. Keep pursuing this subject! This is a great topic.
It sounds like this model of spending a longer time and more money at charging stations might disproportionately hurt poorer groups. They may not get the equipment for years to charge at their apartment, or if they do, their charging car is out in the open for others to abuse. So, they have to charge at one of these stations every day. They Don’t have the budget or time to buy a full meal for the family or shop at target as opposed to a small grocery store. That’s assuming that they actually switch. Even if they don’t because they can’t afford to, gas stations will stop catering to them, and they may not have many choices as to where to fill up. To be clear, I am very pro EV. We just need to think about these things as we make decisions that will affect everyone’s daily lives.
I doubt it'll be mandatory to use the restaurant while you charge the car? Buying things at gas stations is already way more expensive than in a regular store, so if money is tight you're probably used to not doing that. Sure, you'll have to wait during the charging time, but whether you sit in the restaurant with an ordered sandwhich, or in your own car with a sandwhich you brought along probably doesn't make much of a difference?
Currently, in New Zealand, deseil vehicle (mostly not cars) owners are charged a road usage tax based on a meter on the vehicle, and its weight class. I believe electric vehicles are the same. Vehicles with Petrol engines, on the other hand, are taxed based of fuel usage. There's literally a levy on the petrol at the pump. Thing is, you're charged GST (sales tax, essentially) on the actual sale price of the goods in question, so your tax gets taxed! (The same thing happens with tobacco, actually). The others pay their road usage tax as, you know, a tax. No GST on that. Also, NZ petrol prices are just high to start with, partially due to shipping costs. Mind you, Something about how the taxes work mean that, with the already high petrol prices, when oil prices spike... Something in the system absorbs most of the spike so fuel costs to the consumer don't bounce up and down anything like as much as they do elsewhere. Anyway, the point is that there's a Lot of money to be saved on fuel by switching to electricity, which may or may not leave room for spending more at the associated businesses on a regular basis, but certainly reduces strain on the budget if you live somewhere that cars are more necessity than luxury.
I only use charging stops when on long road trips which is something I do maybe once or twice a year max. The rest of the time it is all home charging and using home solar. The local area convenience store still gets visited about the same as when I had a gas car (since I used to mostly fill up at Costco).
@@zukedai6643 You mean being a well-respected pillar of the community, an entrepreneurial small business owner, a responsible father, and desired by all the ladies? Yeah, how awful
@@TheGreatAtario You could give all the things you listed to a non south Asian and you would still have the character you described. However, you've completely chosen to ignore everything about Apu that has been used to represent south Asians. All those have been used to create a caricature of us, which is then used by racists to fuel their racism. When someone acts like Apu to make fun of south Asians it's not the things you mentioned that come up, are they? So, do you still not see how it is problematic?
@@zukedai6643 This response perfectly displays how "problematic" is a bullshit term: you say something is a problem while never actually specifying what the problem is nor why it should be a problem. Exactly what is it about Apu that is a problem, and why is it one? Having an accent? A catchphrase, maybe? If those are the criteria, then all the real-world people with accents (and characters with catchphrases) are gonna have to go, too.
Not so soon. Since the 90 they are talking aboit peak oil and it isn't reached jet. They had to postone it several times. While it is limited. It think it will be more then enough till the 2060s.
Outside stabucks there were two charging stations but they were soon taken out because people were queuing too long and eventually going somewhere else.
