The closest gas station to me, on foot, has converted its mechanics bays to a great taco shop, its "office" to a liquor store with a great selection of spirits, and it has a full-size car wash operation wrapped around it.
So it seems like the most likely conversion would be that the gas station would swap gas pumps for chargers, in phases. Of course the best layout for chargers where charging takes the time it currently does is not the same as the best layout for fuel pumps, so it will be interesting to see how the transition goes.
So at present all the gas stations that I know of that seem viable are embedded in businesses that take up even more space, and the retail fuel business is just a part of it.
The only viable path forward for EVs is to reduce recharge time or make it invisible (do it outside rush hour). Until then I see no way for them to displace hybrids as primary family cars.
I feel like this is something that everyone has been saying for decades and I don't really know what it means in practice. There are countless businesses that are successful soaking up excess time that people happily participate in. The mobile gaming business for example is an industry worth tens of billions of dollars that simply didn't exist a couple decades ago.
>The only viable path forward for EVs is to reduce recharge time or make it invisible (do it outside rush hour). Until then I see no way for them to displace hybrids as primary family cars.
Hybrid market share has likely already peaked and they never became the primary family car for Americans. Hybrid's share of new cars only ever topped 3% once and that was in 2013. Plus charge time has already been decreasing for EVs and Teslas have gotten to the point that an average American would probably only need to charge for 10-20 minutes once a week at one of their highest powered Superchargers. That really isn't the inconvenience that some people are making it out to be if there are other business at these charging locations that can keep people occupied.
Gas stations currently make very little to almost nothing actually selling gas (something like 5-25 cents a gallon last I had heard). Almost all of their income is from also acting as a convenience store for snacks and drinks. They need people in and out as quick as possible, not loitering around for half an hour.
Basically, if charging time dropped to the 5 minute range, sure. I would hate to have to use one, though, given how busy gas stations already are during the day around here.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/19/electric...
As is noted elsewhere in the thread, it isn't simply a battery problem.
Being able to supply the “Ooomph” to fast charge 6 or 10 cars with a 5 minute vehicle turn around ( a la Tesla’s fast chargers) but also triple stacked with cars (hydraulic ramps, customer disembarks and uses the time to pay or shop). Chuck in the ‘free' storage space for your ballasting batteries and I can see a great market for buying up old gas stations located in inner city areas - especially those that are currently car washes, vacant lots etc.