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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

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...
- caconym_ 3y ago
  I just can't take you seriously when you say things that are gross oversimplifications at best or outright falsehoods at worst—for instance that selling gas isn't "a viable business" (and hasn't been since peak gas station!), or that the only practical difficulty standing in the way of a full nationwide rollout of charging services to provide for EV drivers' needs at scale is as simple as "running a cable from a building to parking lot". It reads like you're trying to convince somebody these things are true by rhetorical sleight-of-hand rather than well-founded argument, and it's not going to work on me. > An EV is a bigger breakthrough than a smartphone (which is primarily a content/addiction delivery mechanism). These are consumer products! The average consumer's eyes are going to glaze over if you try to give them this spiel; they'll probably pull out their iPhone and start scrolling. EV ownership saves a lot of people money and time, which I assume is the primary reason their market share is growing so rapidly right now—those people see the value proposition. Schemes like distributed grid energy storage via EV battery have the potential to save consumers even more money, but those schemes will have to be implemented on the garden path of EV ownership to actually move the consumer demand needle.

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...

caconym_ 3y ago
I just can't take you seriously when you say things that are gross oversimplifications at best or outright falsehoods at worst—for instance that selling gas isn't "a viable business" (and hasn't been since peak gas station!), or that the only practical difficulty standing in the way of a full nationwide rollout of charging services to provide for EV drivers' needs at scale is as simple as "running a cable from a building to parking lot". It reads like you're trying to convince somebody these things are true by rhetorical sleight-of-hand rather than well-founded argument, and it's not going to work on me. > An EV is a bigger breakthrough than a smartphone (which is primarily a content/addiction delivery mechanism). These are consumer products! The average consumer's eyes are going to glaze over if you try to give them this spiel; they'll probably pull out their iPhone and start scrolling. EV ownership saves a lot of people money and time, which I assume is the primary reason their market share is growing so rapidly right now—those people see the value proposition. Schemes like distributed grid energy storage via EV battery have the potential to save consumers even more money, but those schemes will have to be implemented on the garden path of EV ownership to actually move the consumer demand needle.