5 ms·

It will be interesting if there comes a point where ICE vehicles are such a small minority of all vehicles, that supporting infrastructure (petrol stations, tra

It will be interesting if there comes a point where ICE vehicles are such a small minority of all vehicles, that supporting infrastructure (petrol stations, traditional mechanics, oil change services, etc) starts to collapse and disappear. There may still be some infrastructure for special use cases like long haul trucking or industrial vehicles, but it might become untenable for the average consumer to own an ICE vehicle, just like it was painfully difficult to own an EV before charging stations became widespread. When that happens, it could further accelerate the decommissioning of old vehicles.

doublesocket 5y ago
The UK's recent fuel shortages have apparently spurred on EV sales so this seems likely.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  This makes me wonder if the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack indirectly led to an acceleration of EV adoption. All of these events make more and more people recognize the relative weakness and fragility of an oil based civilization compared to an electric one.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    You can have equivalent cyberattacks on power stations and EV charging networks.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      Of course. But a key difference is that the electric grid seems to be drastically more decentralized than fuel pipelines. Pipelines for liquid or gaseous fuel have a huge upfront cost and maintenance requirements compared to running power lines, so the incentives are to build them as big as possible. Taking down a power station is certainly a viable attack vector, but the damage caused by losing a single station is drastically more manageable than losing a key pipeline that a massive region of the continent needs to feed continuously from to keep civilization running. This is not even accounting for the further decentralizing and ruggedizing effect that comes when every rooftop subsidizes their own energy needs with solar and batteries.
      - clouddrover 5y ago
        And you want to ignore the inconvenient reality that civilization has managed to keep running all this time? It's plainly not the problem you imagine it to be.
        inglor_cz 5y ago
        Wars with localized collapses of civilization certainly happened before. Life in freshly conquered Berlin was pretty harsh, especially in the first winter. There was a famous street graffitti that said "I envy the dead because their hands aren't freezing off."
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Do you not remember the massive blackouts in the last 50 years? Entire regions of the USA and Canada have gone dark from time to time. California teters on the brink regularly. Remember last winter's troubles in Texas? It's not really any more stable than fuel distribution IMO.
        fomine3 5y ago
        Then huge battery on EV (and V2H) is helpful for life while blackouts.
        theshrike79 5y ago
        EV owners had it good during the Texas Kerfuffle: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-are-drawing-power-from-their-cars-during-blackouts https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-ar... They could use the huge battery in their car to charge devices and some people used them to warm their garage - something you can't do with a petrol/diesel car without, you know, dying.
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        The electric grid is vulnerabe to widespread and long-lasting outages, and has a history of multiple such events. Texas in the current year (weather and capacity induced), Puerto Rico ongoing following Hurricane Maria in 2017, "rolling blackouts" (induced through manipulation of the energy markets) in 2000, numerous regional blackouts through transmission and distribution failures dating to the 1960s. Major concerns are SCADA attacks against control systems themselves, or physical attacks against regional substations which could cripple distribution for weeks or months.
    - atq2119 5y ago
      And (admittedly depending on what type of housing you live in) you can have your own solar on the roof, set up to still supply you even if the grid is down. Hollywood is doing society a disfavour by misrepresenting the apocalypse. EVs and bicycles are the true modes of transport when trouble starts.
      - IcePic 5y ago
        Yeah, Mad Max movies show people fighting in the sunny desert over drops of oil to run their cars when solar panels and an EV would have been royal. 8^D
        pornel 5y ago
        Gasoline has a shelf life of 3 to 6 months. Max a couple of years if it's chemically stabilized and stored hermetically sealed. Mad Max should have been about a heist of solar panels and batteries :)
stephen_g 5y ago
Yeah, and this should be a huge incentive for Governments to implement rebates and things to encourage more EVs. Our Federal Government in Australia is very strongly captured by lobbyists for all sorts of multinational companies, and some of the big ones are the oil & gas industry, so there's little movement here, but when you really think about it, having the sovereign capacity to fuel your vehicle fleet instead of relying on foreign oil (and increasingly in Australia, foreign refinement of that foreign oil) is a massive advantage.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  In Norway yes, because everyone is pretty well off. Currently that would only help people with the highest incomes. And for those it often isn't too relevant if you get a $20,000 tax break. Companies don't care anyway because they can completely write them off and they also have parking space for chargers. So adoption happens mainly here.
fy20 5y ago
Well it will happen eventually if countries go 100% electric, but I doubt it will affect the average consumer for a long time. Fuel stations make most of their profits from non-fuel items (in my country, fuel stations sell some of the best coffee), and people will still need those when commuting or travelling. In Norway some fuel stations have started to convert pumps to EV chargers [0], however there isn't really much cost needed to keep a couple of fuel pumps around. Petrol can last a few months in tanks, and diesel can last up to a year. People are still going to be using petrol for motorbikes and gardening equipment for a long time, and diesel is going to be used by trucks and construction machinery for even longer. [0] https://insideevs.com/news/532464/fuel-stations-norway-fast-chargers/ https://insideevs.com/news/532464/fuel-stations-norway-fast-...
- h0nd 5y ago
  In my country fuel stations are very popular as (apart from train stations) this is the only place where the shops are allowed to stay open after regular business hours and sundays.
- thinkcontext 5y ago
  I'm not sure the traditional gas station format will make sense long term. Charging an EV takes longer than an ICE vehicle, what are people supposed to do with an extra half hour at a gas station? I think people are more likely to want to charge at a grocery store or restaurant.
- pornel 5y ago
  They make profit on non-fuel items because they already have fuel-buying customers to upsell to. These two are co-dependent and are likely to fail together. Once people don't have to come to refuel, the store next to the pumps won't be in a convenient location any more. Simply swapping pumps for EV chargers may not sustain a good-enough business. EV charging needs about 30-60 minutes. Current 5-minute shops that sell cigs and energy drinks aren't an attractive destination. I think it's more likely that malls and supermarkets will add EV charging and take over both sides of gas stations' business. (This is based on first-hand experience. My nearest fast charger is at a gas station.)
raxxorrax 5y ago
Doesn't seem to become reality yet, Norway is really an exception here, their great wealth helps kickstart adoption massively. > before charging stations became widespread. They still aren't and there are no solutions for infrastructure and growth is still severely lacking and disappointingly slow. There is also no solution for people without a dedicated parking spot, which is especially common in cities.

doublesocket 5y ago

The UK's recent fuel shortages have apparently spurred on EV sales so this seems likely.

anonporridge 5y ago
This makes me wonder if the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack indirectly led to an acceleration of EV adoption. All of these events make more and more people recognize the relative weakness and fragility of an oil based civilization compared to an electric one.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  You can have equivalent cyberattacks on power stations and EV charging networks.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Of course. But a key difference is that the electric grid seems to be drastically more decentralized than fuel pipelines. Pipelines for liquid or gaseous fuel have a huge upfront cost and maintenance requirements compared to running power lines, so the incentives are to build them as big as possible. Taking down a power station is certainly a viable attack vector, but the damage caused by losing a single station is drastically more manageable than losing a key pipeline that a massive region of the continent needs to feed continuously from to keep civilization running. This is not even accounting for the further decentralizing and ruggedizing effect that comes when every rooftop subsidizes their own energy needs with solar and batteries.
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      And you want to ignore the inconvenient reality that civilization has managed to keep running all this time? It's plainly not the problem you imagine it to be.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Wars with localized collapses of civilization certainly happened before. Life in freshly conquered Berlin was pretty harsh, especially in the first winter. There was a famous street graffitti that said "I envy the dead because their hands aren't freezing off."
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Do you not remember the massive blackouts in the last 50 years? Entire regions of the USA and Canada have gone dark from time to time. California teters on the brink regularly. Remember last winter's troubles in Texas? It's not really any more stable than fuel distribution IMO.
      - fomine3 5y ago
        Then huge battery on EV (and V2H) is helpful for life while blackouts.
      - theshrike79 5y ago
        EV owners had it good during the Texas Kerfuffle: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-are-drawing-power-from-their-cars-during-blackouts https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-ar... They could use the huge battery in their car to charge devices and some people used them to warm their garage - something you can't do with a petrol/diesel car without, you know, dying.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      The electric grid is vulnerabe to widespread and long-lasting outages, and has a history of multiple such events. Texas in the current year (weather and capacity induced), Puerto Rico ongoing following Hurricane Maria in 2017, "rolling blackouts" (induced through manipulation of the energy markets) in 2000, numerous regional blackouts through transmission and distribution failures dating to the 1960s. Major concerns are SCADA attacks against control systems themselves, or physical attacks against regional substations which could cripple distribution for weeks or months.
  - atq2119 5y ago
    And (admittedly depending on what type of housing you live in) you can have your own solar on the roof, set up to still supply you even if the grid is down. Hollywood is doing society a disfavour by misrepresenting the apocalypse. EVs and bicycles are the true modes of transport when trouble starts.
    - IcePic 5y ago
      Yeah, Mad Max movies show people fighting in the sunny desert over drops of oil to run their cars when solar panels and an EV would have been royal. 8^D
      - pornel 5y ago
        Gasoline has a shelf life of 3 to 6 months. Max a couple of years if it's chemically stabilized and stored hermetically sealed. Mad Max should have been about a heist of solar panels and batteries :)

stephen_g 5y ago

Yeah, and this should be a huge incentive for Governments to implement rebates and things to encourage more EVs. Our Federal Government in Australia is very strongly captured by lobbyists for all sorts of multinational companies, and some of the big ones are the oil & gas industry, so there's little movement here, but when you really think about it, having the sovereign capacity to fuel your vehicle fleet instead of relying on foreign oil (and increasingly in Australia, foreign refinement of that foreign oil) is a massive advantage.

raxxorrax 5y ago
In Norway yes, because everyone is pretty well off. Currently that would only help people with the highest incomes. And for those it often isn't too relevant if you get a $20,000 tax break. Companies don't care anyway because they can completely write them off and they also have parking space for chargers. So adoption happens mainly here.

fy20 5y ago

Well it will happen eventually if countries go 100% electric, but I doubt it will affect the average consumer for a long time. Fuel stations make most of their profits from non-fuel items (in my country, fuel stations sell some of the best coffee), and people will still need those when commuting or travelling. In Norway some fuel stations have started to convert pumps to EV chargers [0], however there isn't really much cost needed to keep a couple of fuel pumps around. Petrol can last a few months in tanks, and diesel can last up to a year. People are still going to be using petrol for motorbikes and gardening equipment for a long time, and diesel is going to be used by trucks and construction machinery for even longer. [0] https://insideevs.com/news/532464/fuel-stations-norway-fast-chargers/ https://insideevs.com/news/532464/fuel-stations-norway-fast-...

h0nd 5y ago
In my country fuel stations are very popular as (apart from train stations) this is the only place where the shops are allowed to stay open after regular business hours and sundays.
thinkcontext 5y ago
I'm not sure the traditional gas station format will make sense long term. Charging an EV takes longer than an ICE vehicle, what are people supposed to do with an extra half hour at a gas station? I think people are more likely to want to charge at a grocery store or restaurant.
pornel 5y ago
They make profit on non-fuel items because they already have fuel-buying customers to upsell to. These two are co-dependent and are likely to fail together. Once people don't have to come to refuel, the store next to the pumps won't be in a convenient location any more. Simply swapping pumps for EV chargers may not sustain a good-enough business. EV charging needs about 30-60 minutes. Current 5-minute shops that sell cigs and energy drinks aren't an attractive destination. I think it's more likely that malls and supermarkets will add EV charging and take over both sides of gas stations' business. (This is based on first-hand experience. My nearest fast charger is at a gas station.)

raxxorrax 5y ago

Doesn't seem to become reality yet, Norway is really an exception here, their great wealth helps kickstart adoption massively. > before charging stations became widespread. They still aren't and there are no solutions for infrastructure and growth is still severely lacking and disappointingly slow. There is also no solution for people without a dedicated parking spot, which is especially common in cities.