At a certain point of EV adoption, selling gas won’t be a very profitable business, because fewer and fewer cars will need it. But there will still be some cars that need gas, that final, say, 30% of ICE cars that are still on the road. But if all or most gas stations shut down at roughly the same time, because they operate under the same business conditions, then those last few ICE drivers will be pretty out of luck, no?
To be clear, this is not an argument that we shouldn’t electrify and decarbonize as fast as possible. I’m more interested in the logistics of managing that transition. And I’m sure that gas stations are not the only case of this phenomenon.
Around where I live gas stations in the traditional sense are getting rare. Most are just pumps and one or several pay stations. You drive up, scan your card or phone, select the product and the pump number. The pump activates and you can fill up. If you want you can go back to the pay station and ask for a receipt if you’d like.
The few manned pumps that still exist are often something else with a gas station attached. Like a large car wash, sandwich shop or convenience store. Especially the large convenience stores are useful, because it’s already a good destination people go to regularly. And one of the few places that have LPG, since those normally are required to be manned. Not that many people still drive LPG, given what a pain in the butt that is, but still.