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Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

electrek.co

141–150 of 217 posts

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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.

> 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.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#142
post #34

Someone remind me again on the stats of battery toxicity and pollution vs fossil fuels? Also, is all of Norway energy produced by wind or solar? Or does this just move the tail pipe and introduce more toxic battery waste?

> Someone remind me again on the stats of battery toxicity and pollution vs fossil fuels?

Can do! Fossil fuels cause more harm than the waste products of batteries. The myth of batteries being worse for the environment has been _thoroughly_ debunked. Feel free to do your own research.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#143
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A VW Golf starts at 35800€, and a VW ID.3 starts at 32800€, taxes included. Overall, electric cars are a bit cheaper than their counterparts, but not a lot. However, today, petrol is 2.15€/l and electricity is 0.013€/kWh. That's 11.20€/100km versus 0.185€/100km for the ID.3, literally two orders of magnitude cheaper. Everyone charges at home, and there's also a 40% discount in toll roads, which saves me about 8€ per…

What if you were going on a 2000km road trip?

Yes, actually. I have to charge for 30-40 minutes every 5 hours or so. That fits well with my meal schedule, and most charging stations are at or close to restaurants or shops. Charging at these stations is almost as expensive as gasoline though.

I wouldn't normally drive more than 1000km in one trip though, and that's at most once per year.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 unl…

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).

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#146
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not applicable to NYC, but isnt it kind of troubling that people who cant afford a luxury vehicle (55-100k) could be put in a position where they have to spend more money (gas) to go fill up out of their way, taxed for being poor, or shut up and take public transit (if it even exists where they live)? Surely no one driving an EV ever got to their position to buy one driving an ICE. Edit: happy this comment in…

> Perhaps not applicable to NYC, but isnt it kind of troubling that people who cant afford a luxury vehicle (55-100k) could be put in a position where they have to spend more money (gas) to go fill up out of their way, taxed for being poor, or shut up and take public transit? Base electric vehicles like the Fiat 500e can be had for ~35k [1], if all you're interested in is commuting without getting wet choose a Twizy…

Twizy's doors don't have glass windows, so you will get wet in it. Also, it doesn't have heating (or cooling), so in terms of thermal and rain comfort, it's closer to riding a motorcycle than driving a car.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#147
post #10

A couple of comments on the article point out that if gas stations start closing due to reduced demand, it will accelerate the effect by making it more cumbersome to own a gas car. Recently, some of the industrial area near my apartment in NYC was rezoned for housing, and nearly all of the local gas stations were torn down (not because of low demand but because a 15 story building would be more profitable). The resul…

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 i…

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.

Re: Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 unl…

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 w…

It's not too hard to imagine parking meters having charging ports.
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