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Owning a gas car will become inconvenient and expensive very soon. The number of gas stations has gone down from 202K to 115K, ~50% down[1]. Gas stations make v

Owning a gas car will become inconvenient and expensive very soon. The number of gas stations has gone down from 202K to 115K, ~50% down[1]. Gas stations make very little money on gas, most of their income is from people buying cigarette, lotteries, lotto, beer, beverages, and some trinkets in the store. All profits are at the margins. When foot traffic drops, even by 10 - 20%, gas stations are not viable. They can increase gas prices, but that will further reduce foot traffic, because most everyone uses gasbuddy or similar apps to find the cheapest gas. And Costco, Walmart, etc can be extremely competitive on gas and even make these loss leaders to drive foot traffic as well as EV charging spots. Gas stations have no move left to gain foot traffic. 10% EV adoption is not far off, thats when we start seeing collapse of gas station. EVs charge at home or work, except when going on long rides. Gas stations lose this foot traffic forever. Adding EV spots at gas station won't help, there is nothing for people to do to for 15 - 20 mins at a gas station, they'd rather go to Target, Walmart, Costco and do some grocery shopping. Most people don't understand how quickly things change. We went from flip phones to smart phones in less than decade. Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains How The Horse Industry Vanished in less than 20 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvzw7NPmppY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvzw7NPmppY Folks buying new ICE cars will soon (< 10 years) have a rapidly depreciating vehicle, nearly worthless because it will be costly to own and operate. It will be like owning a horse after everyone bought a car. [1]The first gas station in the United States opened in St. Louis in 1905, and by 1994 there were 202,800 across the country. Fast forward to 2013, and station numbers had decreased by 25% or almost 50,000, and by 2020 that number had shrunk to 115,200. A 2019 report by BCG predicts that 80% of conventional gas stations could be driven (pun intended) out of business by 2035: https://enpowered.com/the-death-of-gas-stations-will-be-far-sooner-than-you-think/ https://enpowered.com/the-death-of-gas-stations-will-be-far-...

throw_pm23 3y ago
Good observations (and relevant username). Just pointing out that people spending 15-20 mins at stations is not unrealistic. At least near motorways, gas stations already position themselves as a place where you can do your regular rest during a long drive, with diners, cafes, children's playgrounds, etc., some drivers even catch a quick nap in the parking lot -- this is how it looks in Europe at least.
- prepend 3y ago
  > Just pointing out that people spending 15-20 mins at stations is not unrealistic. This is super unrealistic due to volume. I filled my car at Costco this morning. I spent about 3 minutes pumping 10 gallons. At the same time, 25 other cars filled up at the 25 pumps. And there was a line backed up. To change refuel times from 3-5 minutes to 15-20 (rather optimistic based on my supercharging experience) won’t work unless you increase the charging infrastructure significantly. People will need to charge at home, not at gas stations. And motorway stops are going to have to have hundreds of chargers not the current dozen or two.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    I can't remember the last time I had to wait in line for gas that wasn't at Costco. Costco is a pretty extreme outlier. But agreed that charging should shift to the home, the problem there is chargers for on-street parking though for people who don't have driveways/garages (of course this might eventually get solved by fully automated vehicles and lowering ownership of vehicles, but that's still vaporware right now while EVs are clearly here right now).
    - fragmede 3y ago
      It's not too hard to imagine parking meters having charging ports.
      - simfree 3y ago
        Running a 240v 50A power cable is orders of magnitude cheaper than building a gas pump.
      - mulmen 3y ago
        Ports is right. This is only viable if the cars bring the cable. Seattle tried installing chargers at public street parking spots and the cables were stolen.
        3y ago
jliptzin 3y ago
Yea, exactly, I have been telling friends to think hard about buying a new ICE vehicle for this reason. Gas isn’t a utility like electric or water. Stations are all privately owned, as soon as it’s no longer profitable to operate, it’ll shut down. If you’re in a small town and it’s the only one, sorry, you now have to drive extra distance to get to the next one. The whole thing will collapse like a house of cards relatively soon and the bag holders will be people with ICE cars that they can only sell for scrap metal. I guess if you have to, then leasing is the only reasonable way to go?
badpun 3y ago
The stations won't "collapse", but merely the number of them will start declining proportionally to the gas vehicles losing popularity (assuming it actually happens). This way, each of the remaining gas stations will have a greater share of the (decreased) foot trafic, thus still maintaining profitability.
- Arnt 3y ago
  That's not how it works in Norway. A lot of stations are so far from the closest neighbour that they have a quasi-monopoly in their area, and "so far" is a surprisingly low number, according to the hearsay I've heard. The hearsay also says that they close when they need expensive maintenance, not before.
  - badpun 3y ago
    In remote areas with low population density, the stations are like you say quasi-monopolies, so they can just raise the prices if the foot traffic declines. The closures caused by need for expensive maintenance can be a problem, though.
    - Arnt 3y ago
      Raised prices in the coming years are what people expect, and is a reason to get an electric car. The gas stations only have a monopoly among the owners of ICE vehicles, people don't have to stay in that group.
caconym_ 3y ago
You're citing a decline in gas stations that happened during a period where EVs' share of new vehicle sales went from being nonexistent to, at the very tail end, low single digits. So, obviously other factors were driving that trend, and unless you want to claim that gas sales were trending toward zero even in the absence of any alternative, I think we have to assume that the gas sales industry was continuing to meet consumer demand in spite of said decline. If anything, that tells me it will be more robust to EV encroachment, rather than being at some kind of tipping point where it's poised to collapse overnight despite the fact that the vast majority of vehicles on the road today run on gasoline. The analogy with smartphones is also not a very convincing one, because a smartphone is a fundamentally different (vastly more capable) product than a flip phone. A current-gen electric car is just a car, with some advantages and some disadvantages that will each matter more or less to you depending on your circumstances. I don't really have any reason to doubt mainstream EV market share predictions, which IIUC have them at about 50% new vehicle sales share nationwide in 2030, and I expect that will make it harder to buy gas, probably much harder in certain locations with above-mean adoption. But projections like that need to be (and I presume are) based on more than what you're offering here.
- thelastgallon 3y ago
  > So, obviously other factors were driving that trend Yes, gas sales are nearly zero in US, they are just starting. I agree other factors were driving that trend. Probably gas stations figuring out that its not a viable business. But now, EV sales have started. 25% of cars sold in California are EVs and growing. If gas stations have gone down 50% (202K to 115K) without any EVs, we can predict they will go down faster with EVs. > gas sales industry was continuing to meet consumer demand There is no consumer demand for gas sales, any more than there is a demand for whale oil or kerosene. There is a consumer demand for lighting, and whale oil, then kerosene were used in lamps obsoleted by electric lamps. Similarly, there is a consumer demand for going from point A to point B, most people are not gas-holics, they'll use whatever fuel is cheapest (first and foremost) and convenient. Well, EVs are most convenient, you can charge anywhere you park, it is hard to think of any building (home, work, shop) without electricity. If the biggest challenge that mankind is faced with is running a cable from a building to parking lot and we fail spectacularly at that, we are doomed. However, we have precedence that we can do this. Standard oil is built in consumer demand for lighting and kerosene lamps. When light bulb was invented, its not just about convincing people to buy electric lamps. It is also about doing the far harder things of producing electricity and distributing it. This grid was built and people switched to electric lamps. So, I am someone confident people will figure out how to run a cable from a building to parking spot. US has 2 billion parking spots and ~250 million cars, just converting a small fraction to EVs is enough. An EV is a bigger breakthrough than a smartphone (which is primarily a content/addiction delivery mechanism). An EV solves energy storage, an unsolved problem of civilization. EVs can provide passive income. Folks who participated in a VPP pilot with powerwalls made $150/day [1], this is the very definition of passive income. A powerwall has 13.5kWh capacity vs car batteries of 80kWh, there is nothing preventing cars from supplying power to the grid at peak prices and making bank. Most of our electricity bill is for peak power, which is from costly natural gas peaker plants. These will all be replaced. Next, there is significant curtailment of renewables, which overproduce and there is no demand. Power prices go negative (200 million times/year [2]), which means an EV owner can be paid for the privilege of charging his car. I can think of at least a few people who'd be interested in getting paid for charging their car, or even charge for free. An EV is primarily an energy storage device (idle in parking lot 95% of the time), which provides elastic demand, as well as supply. Nothing else on the grid has this capability. This capability changes things permanently. Think of a time before information storage, youtube/instagram/tiktok -- all of this content and businesses were not possible before we figured out how to store information (hard disks, ssds). EVs bring that capability. This is a significant civilization upgrade that will enable many things in the future. [1] https://electrek.co/2023/07/05/tesla-electric-customers-report-making-150-day/ https://electrek.co/2023/07/05/tesla-electric-customers-repo... [2] Wholesale prices went negative about 200 million times across the seven US grids in 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-renewable-energy-sends-us-power-prices-below-zero https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-r...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
PopAlongKid 3y ago
>Gas stations make very little money on gas, most of their income is from people buying cigarette, lotteries, lotto, beer, beverages, and some trinkets in the store. This omits a significant factor, which is that it used to be many gas stations also had several repair bays, employing a mechanic or two. Anecdata: between mid-1980s and 2000, four such gas station/repair businesses within a mile of my house closed, leaving three gas/convenience store businesses remaining within that same radius, some of which used to have repair service as well. This used to be a solid small business opportunity for a solo or partnership owner/worker. I suspect that as cars became more computerized the repair business became too specialized, and also some of the stations which were leased from large oil companies were sold out from under the operator.
- jfengel 3y ago
  I suspect car longevity has also been a factor. During my lifetime cars had 5-digit odometers. Cars now regularly last 200,000 to 300,000 miles. Oil changes have gone from 3,000 miles to 5,000 or as much as 15,000. Even more in a hybrid. Those repairs that are necessary are harder than they used to be. I recently had to have a headlight bulb changed professionally because I just didn't want to dismount the wheel well mud guard. Some, I've heard, require you to remove the bumper. But I think a lot of those service bays just stopped seeing as much traffic as they used to.
fy20 3y ago
If that's the case, then why are they making it more convenient to pay? Where I am (in Europe) all the major petrol stations have mobile apps you can pay with. One even launched a system where you can register your license plate, and whatever you fill up is automatically charged to your account. If foot traffic is all that makes money, it seems they should want you to go into the store, not pay from your phone.
Fatnino 3y ago
I question how much foot traffic Costco's gas station generate. Regular gas stations have matched the time it takes to fill up gas with the time it takes to get in and out of the convenience store. A 20-30 minute typical shopping round in a Costco doesn't match up with a 4-5 minute gas fill. It does incidentally match up with an EV charge up.

throw_pm23 3y ago

Good observations (and relevant username). Just pointing out that people spending 15-20 mins at stations is not unrealistic. At least near motorways, gas stations already position themselves as a place where you can do your regular rest during a long drive, with diners, cafes, children's playgrounds, etc., some drivers even catch a quick nap in the parking lot -- this is how it looks in Europe at least.

prepend 3y ago
> Just pointing out that people spending 15-20 mins at stations is not unrealistic. This is super unrealistic due to volume. I filled my car at Costco this morning. I spent about 3 minutes pumping 10 gallons. At the same time, 25 other cars filled up at the 25 pumps. And there was a line backed up. To change refuel times from 3-5 minutes to 15-20 (rather optimistic based on my supercharging experience) won’t work unless you increase the charging infrastructure significantly. People will need to charge at home, not at gas stations. And motorway stops are going to have to have hundreds of chargers not the current dozen or two.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  I can't remember the last time I had to wait in line for gas that wasn't at Costco. Costco is a pretty extreme outlier. But agreed that charging should shift to the home, the problem there is chargers for on-street parking though for people who don't have driveways/garages (of course this might eventually get solved by fully automated vehicles and lowering ownership of vehicles, but that's still vaporware right now while EVs are clearly here right now).
  - fragmede 3y ago
    It's not too hard to imagine parking meters having charging ports.
    - simfree 3y ago
      Running a 240v 50A power cable is orders of magnitude cheaper than building a gas pump.
    - mulmen 3y ago
      Ports is right. This is only viable if the cars bring the cable. Seattle tried installing chargers at public street parking spots and the cables were stolen.
      - 3y ago

jliptzin 3y ago

Yea, exactly, I have been telling friends to think hard about buying a new ICE vehicle for this reason. Gas isn’t a utility like electric or water. Stations are all privately owned, as soon as it’s no longer profitable to operate, it’ll shut down. If you’re in a small town and it’s the only one, sorry, you now have to drive extra distance to get to the next one. The whole thing will collapse like a house of cards relatively soon and the bag holders will be people with ICE cars that they can only sell for scrap metal. I guess if you have to, then leasing is the only reasonable way to go?

badpun 3y ago

The stations won't "collapse", but merely the number of them will start declining proportionally to the gas vehicles losing popularity (assuming it actually happens). This way, each of the remaining gas stations will have a greater share of the (decreased) foot trafic, thus still maintaining profitability.

Arnt 3y ago
That's not how it works in Norway. A lot of stations are so far from the closest neighbour that they have a quasi-monopoly in their area, and "so far" is a surprisingly low number, according to the hearsay I've heard. The hearsay also says that they close when they need expensive maintenance, not before.
- badpun 3y ago
  In remote areas with low population density, the stations are like you say quasi-monopolies, so they can just raise the prices if the foot traffic declines. The closures caused by need for expensive maintenance can be a problem, though.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    Raised prices in the coming years are what people expect, and is a reason to get an electric car. The gas stations only have a monopoly among the owners of ICE vehicles, people don't have to stay in that group.

caconym_ 3y ago

You're citing a decline in gas stations that happened during a period where EVs' share of new vehicle sales went from being nonexistent to, at the very tail end, low single digits. So, obviously other factors were driving that trend, and unless you want to claim that gas sales were trending toward zero even in the absence of any alternative, I think we have to assume that the gas sales industry was continuing to meet consumer demand in spite of said decline. If anything, that tells me it will be more robust to EV encroachment, rather than being at some kind of tipping point where it's poised to collapse overnight despite the fact that the vast majority of vehicles on the road today run on gasoline. The analogy with smartphones is also not a very convincing one, because a smartphone is a fundamentally different (vastly more capable) product than a flip phone. A current-gen electric car is just a car, with some advantages and some disadvantages that will each matter more or less to you depending on your circumstances. I don't really have any reason to doubt mainstream EV market share predictions, which IIUC have them at about 50% new vehicle sales share nationwide in 2030, and I expect that will make it harder to buy gas, probably much harder in certain locations with above-mean adoption. But projections like that need to be (and I presume are) based on more than what you're offering here.

thelastgallon 3y ago
> So, obviously other factors were driving that trend Yes, gas sales are nearly zero in US, they are just starting. I agree other factors were driving that trend. Probably gas stations figuring out that its not a viable business. But now, EV sales have started. 25% of cars sold in California are EVs and growing. If gas stations have gone down 50% (202K to 115K) without any EVs, we can predict they will go down faster with EVs. > gas sales industry was continuing to meet consumer demand There is no consumer demand for gas sales, any more than there is a demand for whale oil or kerosene. There is a consumer demand for lighting, and whale oil, then kerosene were used in lamps obsoleted by electric lamps. Similarly, there is a consumer demand for going from point A to point B, most people are not gas-holics, they'll use whatever fuel is cheapest (first and foremost) and convenient. Well, EVs are most convenient, you can charge anywhere you park, it is hard to think of any building (home, work, shop) without electricity. If the biggest challenge that mankind is faced with is running a cable from a building to parking lot and we fail spectacularly at that, we are doomed. However, we have precedence that we can do this. Standard oil is built in consumer demand for lighting and kerosene lamps. When light bulb was invented, its not just about convincing people to buy electric lamps. It is also about doing the far harder things of producing electricity and distributing it. This grid was built and people switched to electric lamps. So, I am someone confident people will figure out how to run a cable from a building to parking spot. US has 2 billion parking spots and ~250 million cars, just converting a small fraction to EVs is enough. An EV is a bigger breakthrough than a smartphone (which is primarily a content/addiction delivery mechanism). An EV solves energy storage, an unsolved problem of civilization. EVs can provide passive income. Folks who participated in a VPP pilot with powerwalls made $150/day [1], this is the very definition of passive income. A powerwall has 13.5kWh capacity vs car batteries of 80kWh, there is nothing preventing cars from supplying power to the grid at peak prices and making bank. Most of our electricity bill is for peak power, which is from costly natural gas peaker plants. These will all be replaced. Next, there is significant curtailment of renewables, which overproduce and there is no demand. Power prices go negative (200 million times/year [2]), which means an EV owner can be paid for the privilege of charging his car. I can think of at least a few people who'd be interested in getting paid for charging their car, or even charge for free. An EV is primarily an energy storage device (idle in parking lot 95% of the time), which provides elastic demand, as well as supply. Nothing else on the grid has this capability. This capability changes things permanently. Think of a time before information storage, youtube/instagram/tiktok -- all of this content and businesses were not possible before we figured out how to store information (hard disks, ssds). EVs bring that capability. This is a significant civilization upgrade that will enable many things in the future. [1] https://electrek.co/2023/07/05/tesla-electric-customers-report-making-150-day/ https://electrek.co/2023/07/05/tesla-electric-customers-repo... [2] Wholesale prices went negative about 200 million times across the seven US grids in 2021: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-renewable-energy-sends-us-power-prices-below-zero https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/trapped-r...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

PopAlongKid 3y ago

>Gas stations make very little money on gas, most of their income is from people buying cigarette, lotteries, lotto, beer, beverages, and some trinkets in the store. This omits a significant factor, which is that it used to be many gas stations also had several repair bays, employing a mechanic or two. Anecdata: between mid-1980s and 2000, four such gas station/repair businesses within a mile of my house closed, leaving three gas/convenience store businesses remaining within that same radius, some of which used to have repair service as well. This used to be a solid small business opportunity for a solo or partnership owner/worker. I suspect that as cars became more computerized the repair business became too specialized, and also some of the stations which were leased from large oil companies were sold out from under the operator.

jfengel 3y ago
I suspect car longevity has also been a factor. During my lifetime cars had 5-digit odometers. Cars now regularly last 200,000 to 300,000 miles. Oil changes have gone from 3,000 miles to 5,000 or as much as 15,000. Even more in a hybrid. Those repairs that are necessary are harder than they used to be. I recently had to have a headlight bulb changed professionally because I just didn't want to dismount the wheel well mud guard. Some, I've heard, require you to remove the bumper. But I think a lot of those service bays just stopped seeing as much traffic as they used to.

fy20 3y ago

If that's the case, then why are they making it more convenient to pay? Where I am (in Europe) all the major petrol stations have mobile apps you can pay with. One even launched a system where you can register your license plate, and whatever you fill up is automatically charged to your account. If foot traffic is all that makes money, it seems they should want you to go into the store, not pay from your phone.

Fatnino 3y ago

I question how much foot traffic Costco's gas station generate. Regular gas stations have matched the time it takes to fill up gas with the time it takes to get in and out of the convenience store. A 20-30 minute typical shopping round in a Costco doesn't match up with a 4-5 minute gas fill. It does incidentally match up with an EV charge up.