Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by caconym_ » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

thelastgallon wrote: post #191

caconym_ wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

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.

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

#212

Post by nucleardog » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:14 PM UTC

TheRealPomax wrote: post #66

nucleardog wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know anyone that often drives somewhere specifically to get gas. As long as you occasionally drive past a gas station during your travels you just stop in for 3-5 minutes and fill the car up. Even if there isn’t one directly on your route, we’re talking a long ways off I think that you need to travel 15 or minutes from every point of your trip to each a gas station. Like, we've reached such a low density that…

Time to move to the country side. Discover a whole new aspect of "...so you're saying I can get basic groceries in town, but gas is 15 minutes further in the opposite direction of where I live?".

Maybe Canada's just a bit different then. I've lived in a few rural areas and do currently. Previously I was located 1.5 hours and two ferry rides from the nearest police detachment. The acreage I'm on right now is in the catchment area for a town of 500 people. Spent some time in the prairies where, if you're not living in the two major cities, there's 1/10 the population of Norway spread out over almost double the land area.

A gas station has never been hard to come by in my experience. Anywhere I've been that's big enough to have a grocery store has a gas station. Anywhere not big enough to have a grocery store has a gas station, and that gas station probably has a limited selection of groceries. And if you live somewhere small enough that you don't have either, chances are you're occasionally driving your car to somewhere that does because you generally need to buy groceries and other supplies.

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

#213

Post by Arnt » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 3:15 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #205

Arnt wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#214

Post by ada1981 » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 4:14 PM UTC

ada1981 wrote: 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?

Oh the downvotes for asking questions…

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

#215

Post by Fatnino » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

thelastgallon wrote: post #99

macNchz wrote: 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…

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.

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

#216

Post by jfengel » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 8:16 PM UTC

PopAlongKid wrote: post #166

thelastgallon wrote: post #99

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…

>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, leav…

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.

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

#217

Post by aftbit » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

ctroein89 wrote: post #136

aftbit wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That distance is London to Stockholm by road, which is going to be unfathomably far for most Europeans. Maybe that could be a road trip across the full length of Norway or Sweden, but generally that’s a once-in-a-lifetime multi-country road trip that one will want to enjoy. I’ve travelled London to Stockholm before, and the only reason to do it is to travel with a family pet. Otherwise flying or taking the train will…

While for Americans, that is a comfortable middle distance for a family vacation. My family used to drive that far two or three times a year to visit family in Florida when I was a child.

This highlights why range anxiety is a much bigger issue for Americans than Europeans. That, combined with the considerably higher fuel prices, are why EVs do so much better in Europe than they do here in the USA.

I really liked the idea of a generator that could go in the truck bed for the F-150 Lightning. You could convert your car from EV to gas powered for those 2-3 times a year that you need to, while still charging at home and getting the benefits of an EV the rest of the time. You could even rent or borrow the device from dealerships. Alas it seems like this early concept will not be included in the final vehicle.