[throitallaway]

> By 2030-2035, people with gas cars will be looking at maps to find open gas stations.

That's a wild statement. Not everyone replaces their vehicles every year. Some people drive a car for 10-20 (+) years before ditching it. There will assuredly still be plenty of open gas stations in 2035.

[richardw]

When the costs of running those gas cars becomes irrational to continue, purchasing behaviour will accelerate. We keep being surprised how fast this transition is happening, those surprises are more likely to continue than not.

2035 is a long time away. iPhone was released 16 years ago and the world changed within the next decade.

When cheap cars and trucks really arrive the primary limit will be supply. ~nobody uses feature phones anymore. Electric vehicles could well be like that once we get real scale, and especially in countries that don’t currently have very high car ownership because they won’t be defending the old regime. Countries that embrace and accelerate this change will receive the most economic benefits.

[nottorp]

The most irrational thing, cost wise, is to replace a working car that you've paid off.

[matthewdgreen]

Next time you take a drive, count the fraction of cars on the road that are >= 7 years old. Now imagine those cars are the only ICE vehicles on the road and everything newer is electric. Consider what’s that fraction, how much disposable cash do you think those folks will have, and how many inexpensive gas stations and mechanics will continue to stay in business to support those people?

[alvah]

Depends on the definition of "working". Modern cars are full of components that unexpectedly cost $thousands to replace. I prefer to replace my family's cars when the manufacturer's warranty expires, having been caught out a few times now with stupid repair bills for 4-8 year old cars.

[richardw]

Won’t argue. I had one car for 14 years.

But if the car is likely to plunge in value, I might choose to move faster to offload it. People will either do that or keep it until it dies. Enthusiastic countries will accelerate the process by increasing taxes on older vehicles.

[ric2b]

People were used to switching their phones quite often when the iPhone came out, and the iPhone and other smartphones were about 100x cheaper than buying a car.

Expecting a similar transition period is extremely naive.

[EarthMephit]

Once we reach about 40% of vehicles being EVs a lot of petrol/gas stations in more expensive areas in cities will become non-vaiable economically - It'll probably happen quite quickly.

Gasoline vehicles will become more expensive to maintain and run, and more of a hassle to refuel, so even people like me who like to keep their cars for ages will be forced to switch a lot earlier than normal - especially if you live in the city.

[Symbiote]

In some countries (Europe at least) there will also be anti-pollution regulations preventing driving ICE vehicles into cities.

These already exist for large trucks, buses, vans and so on. They are just starting to be introduced for the oldest diesel cars.

[jillesvangurp]

Logically, not all petrol stations are going to survive double digit percentage drops in business very long. That's basically what is happening shortly. And it won't stop at 20% either. As battery prices come down and production volumes go up, this is a trend that will accelerate and re-enforce itself.

Once the EV market share hits something like 50% (middle of next decade, ish), petrol business will be down much more than 50% from today. Many petrol stations will have disappeared. Most commercial fleets will be close to 100% electric at that point (or striving to be). Most long distance road travel will be electric. Because it's vastly cheaper than anything else at that point. Any heavy road users will switch sooner rather than later because of the cost benefits from going electric. As soon as they can basically.

EVs will be over represented in miles driven collectively. As in, people might still own ICE vehicles but they would not be driving them a lot as that would be costly. And hence not use as much fuel.

[fckgw]

The average age of a vehicle on the road in the US is 12 1/2 years. We have a long, slow transition to EV and will be cohabitating for a while.

[jewayne]

I think you will be shocked at how low the threshold will be in terms of EV adoption before gas stations start to close.

[thrixton]

Yep, once we reach a tipping point, we’ll see a snowball effect where low-margin gas stations are forced to close, others have to push their prices up, BEV’s become even more attractive and so on.

With the number of cheap (mostly chinese) BEV’s available now and coming in the pipeline we’re already seeing some very cost competitive propositions.

I think that point is very close, maybe mid-next year if all goes well.

[chrisco255]

Y'all understand that gas stations make almost all their money from snacks right? They make maybe up to 10 cents a gallon on gas. It's always been a low margin business, but since gas can sit in a gas station's below ground tank for months at a time, it's not really a concern for them if people start filling up gas less and start super-charging more. They will simply have less fuel resupplies. That's all.

[jewayne]

It's funny, in another thread I pointed out the convenience stores, arguing that it will incentivize shutting the pumps down sooner rather than later. At a certain point pumps need replaced, and won't do it if they're not going to pay themselves off.

[nicoburns]

A lot of stations will go out of business if they only have say 50% of the sales volume though. Or even 70%.

Places lake motorway service stations where people will supercharge will do just fine, but your local gas station will have to compete will home chargers, parking lot chargers, etc. Not a lot of people will choose to shop at an expensive gas station shop if they don’t have to.

[chrisco255]

People aren't going to stop eating snacks and munchies just because they get an electric car. And I don't know if you've ever been to a Wawa or not but a lot of convenience stores are starting to serve decent quality food as well.

[listenallyall]

Low margin =/= unprofitable.

Selling gas is hugely profitable, labor cost for dispensing gas is zero. It's why legacy c-store operators like 7-11 and Wawa now include gas at almost all new locations they build.

[chrisco255]

It's not hugely profitable, its simply a draw for foot traffic to sell more snacks, alcohol, and food. 7-11 and Wawa have been serving gas since as long as I can remember.

Gas stations make about 10 cents per gallon gross profit on the gas pumped. That's before capital equipment depreciation, equipment maintenance, facilities staff, cleaning, etc.

It's profitable, but it produces a minority of the business's profit. The bulk of the profit is from higher margin snacks, drinks, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery, etc.

A switch from gas to electric is not going to affect most convenience stores.

[antisthenes]

So, EVs achieve parity with ICE on 2025/26, add 12.5 years.

2037-38 seems like a reasonable estimate for ICE vehicle market becoming smaller than EV, and all the accompanying things that go with it, like disappearing gas stations and more and more restrictions on ICE vehicles (e.g. city centers, commercial sales only, etc.)

[potatopatch]

I think there are quite a few reasons ICE cars bought now or recently won't get to their normal lifespan, especially in urban areas which probably would have already restricted them if there were economy EVs to help politicians deflect claims of elitism. They also have the tank liability and space issues that already burden downtown gas station economics.

If the diesel transition takes time, I think the gas pumps will also stay along the major truck routes, but one might feel like a NG fuel user looking for an airport station in regions with a lot of urban density.

(Even without these pressures, an EV is already 1/3 the price to operate so that pushes ICEs toward infrequent users which accelerates the downward spiral of gas stations and gas consumers.)

[smileysteve]

Using that stat is interesting; how many gas stations will close in 4 years, 30% of addressable market is a dark outlook for investors, 50% cut in 6 years will reshape many localities.

[m463]

I'm thinking about other things that quietly disappeared.

film development, pay phones, radio stations, record stores, video rental, etc...

[jewayne]

> There will assuredly still be plenty of open gas stations in 2035.

I am not sure of this at all. At the very least, we can bet by that timeframe the number of gas stations will be going down. Why? For the same reason I don't have a Boston Market or Pei Wei near me any more. Because capitalism.

Investors will not necessarily wait for even 50% of the cars on the road to be electric before they start pulling their money out of gas stations. And especially because most stations make very little at the pump anyway -- they make most of their money in the attached convenience store. I don't know how long pumps and underground tanks last, but I would expect that by 2030 some stations will be opting out of replacing warn out pump equipment. And I expect this to start in neighborhood stations in wealthy areas first, where EV adoption and land value are both high.

[nicoburns]

Yeah, I would guess 2035 is probably a little early for them to be actually scarce, but I would expect the downward trend to be well on its way by then.

[smileysteve]

We're at 5% adoption, that's already a lot of customers to lose for a low margin business.

And sadly, as older cars majority areas will reflect economic status and local crime, service deserts are more likely to develop.

I drive a 20 year old ice.

[grecy]

Remember how wild it was when Apple announced a $500 smartphone. They were literally laughed at and everyone thought it was utter insanity. Nobody could have ever predicted how rapidly society would adopt smartphones, and the massive changes our lives have seen because of it.

I expect the change to EVs will follow a similar path, and in ten years there will be "experts" looking back saying "It's unprecedented - we NEVER could have predicted this!".