Why it's the end of the road for petrol stations.

[BigSkyBrad]

(BBC News)

 

The big worry for most people thinking about buying an electric car is how to charge the thing.

 

But the real question you should be asking is how you're going to refuel your petrol or diesel vehicle if you don't go electric.

That's because electric cars are going to send the petrol station business into a death spiral over the next two decades, making electric vehicles the default option for all car owners.

 

Why? Because charging electric vehicles is going to become much more straightforward than refuelling petrol and diesel cars.

 

This isn't just because the government has banned the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

 

Imagine we were going the other way, replacing electric cars with fossil fuel power.

 

You are writing the risk assessment for a new petrol station. You want to dig a big hole in the ground in the middle of town, put in some tanks and fill them up with an enormous amount of highly flammable fuel.

 

Then you're proposing to attach a really powerful pump and invite in random members of the public.

 

They'll arrive in vehicles with hot engines. You'll hand them the really powerful pump that sprays the highly flammable liquid.

 

Without any supervision they'll use it to transfer large quantities of the highly flammable liquid into their hot vehicle, they'll pay you and drive off.

 

Are you OK to sign off on that? Do you think Health and Safety will give it the green light?

[AdamR]

Read this the other day. Nonsense. The government make too much money out of fuel duty to let that happen. And money is all they really care about, these 'green targets' will never be met.

[Mark (smokey mow)]

35 minutes ago, BigSkyBrad said:

This isn't just because the government has banned the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

This is factually incorrect.

 

it is only cars that are fuelled solely by petrol and diesel that will be banned.  They’ll be plenty of hybrid cars for years to come and not to mention commercial vehicles, motorcycles and agricultural vehicles that this ban doesn’t affect.

 

yes the role of the filling station will change but they’re not going to vanish overnight or for many decades to come.

[Kingster]

45 minutes ago, Mark (smokey mow) said:

They’ll be plenty of hybrid cars for years to come

2035 for hybrids - with only “some” sold post 2030 isn’t it?
 

But no doubt we’ll see a Govt U-turn as the reality bites!

[Mark (smokey mow)]

1 hour ago, Chris King said:

2035 for hybrids - with only “some” sold post 2030 isn’t it?
 

Yes but they’ve not yet worked out the details for which ones!

 

given that the average life of a car is between 8-12 years a total ban in 2035 would still take us to 2047 before we need to begin worrying about where our petrol comes from.  

[Richard (OldStager)]

i have often wondered that given full electric cars currently pay no road tax and should petrol ever disappear , where is the gov going to find the lost revenue... they surely have to start taxing the technology again or perhaps via a pay per mile affair using gps or whatever replaces it.

[Kingster]

23 minutes ago, OldStager said:

where is the gov going to find the lost revenue

The elephant in the room!

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

10 minutes ago, Chris King said:

The elephant in the room!

Pay per mile. Hence why they are investing so heavily on SMART motorways etc and increased nanny state electronics in all new cars so that it's going to be easier to implement!

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Yep, pay per mile is what’s currently on the horizon, and having its infrastructure developed and built.

[Rory's Dad]

It's a long while since I've had a car that's younger than 8 - 12 years old!!

[Pco]

So what's being missed here is the demand that a fast charging station takes. And the local infrastructure costs a small fortune to move or put in new supplies, so unless it's directly next to a substation with suitable spare capacity then digging a big hole for a tank will be far more carbon efficient 😂 and cheaper. 

 

Diverting a small HV can cost ££££ just for the suppliers cost excluding civils..

 

Petrol stations have plenty of life left in em...

[corsechris]

Telematics will be compulsory on new cars in the E u from October I think it is, so you can bet we will get them as well. That’s all that’s needed to take care of charging for road use.

 

FWIW, I've been of the view that pay-per-mile is by far the fairest way, but then I would say that given I do so few miles and always have. Next best way would be putting it on the fuel (whatever that fuel may be). 

[Steve (sdh2903)]

1 minute ago, corsechris said:

FWIW, I've been of the view that pay-per-mile is by far the fairest way, but then I would say that given I do so few miles and always have. Next best way would be putting it on the fuel (whatever that fuel may be). 

 

Id agree. Can you imagine the look on the faces of the smug eco warrior tesla-ists when they start getting taxed on their lecky to make up for the lost fuel duty 🤣

[BigSkyBrad]

Well, they weren't the responses I was expecting - given that it had been written as a tongue-in-cheek stab at H&S nowadays!

[Blatman]

4 hours ago, AdamR said:

Read this the other day. Nonsense. The government make too much money out of fuel duty to let that happen. And money is all they really care about, these 'green targets' will never be met.

 

Yeah it was on the BBC website. Terrible piece of fundamentally inaccurate, poorly researched claptrap from someone who I suspect was doing an internship having just got a 2.2 in media studies...  except it was from their "Chief Environment Correspondent" which is a real worry...

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57416829