What is the likely future for gas stations, auto mechanics, fuel trucking, and refineries.

bobcat

Well-known Member
Location
Northern Calif
It seems clear to most that our transition away from Internal combustion engines is happening, but it is likely to be a long process.
Nevertheless, with the projected longer ranges of EV's flirting with 1000 miles on a charge, and EV prices set to be reduced as mass production kicks in, and around 90% of EV owners now charging (At least partially) at home, what does that mean for the fuel industry. What will become of gas stations, etc....

Many gas stations are also convenience stores because profit margins for gas is small (Most of it goes elsewhere). However, if the demand for gas gradually declines, what do they do. They could convert more to charging stations, but would the demand be there if EV ranges are longer and besides, most of those stores are small business and franchises, and the cost to convert could be a deal breaker. Besides, it's a big gamble, and not to mention the problem of many leaking underground fuel tanks and the costs involved removing them and the soil.

One could look to places like Norway to see what has happened there, but with the newer EV capabilities changing, would that model still hold up if people have less reliance on public charging?

With EV's having far fewer parts to maintain, the regular maintenance schedule looks more like this:
  • Tire rotation every 7,500 miles
  • Cabin air filter replacement every 22,500 miles
  • Coolant flushed every 150,000 miles
In addition, most independent mechanics are not qualified to work on the electronics that make up an EV. It's more dealership and electronic oriented. I think they will still be around for older cars, but their numbers may shrink over time.

The United Kingdom announced Wednesday it would ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles by the year 2030, 10 years earlier than initially planned. Other nations have already made the commitment to phase them out, as well as California and the Federal Government. This will re-shape the landscape of the fuel industry and many businesses as we know it, but who knows what it may look like.
 

I've about given up on these political threads. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think.
 

Auto mechanics will retrain as demand increases

Trucking IMO trucking companies will have to adjust fleet size & terminals to compensate for lack of "Truck Stops" that are in place now for refueling long haul loads. Or At least until the same kind of electrical recharge stations are built to replace the fossil fuel stations. Conversion will eat into natural resources.

Refineries probably will be fazed out & the land used to build lithium processing plants.

I'll never see the result of conversion. But I can envision the source of lithium depleting until conversion to fossil fuels that have not been used becomes necessary.
 
Are Evs still unpredictably catching fire?? That's a glitch I want to see them fix. ;);)
Well, according to the limited studies done by insurance companies, EV's have far fewer fires than their counterparts.
Electric vehicles: 25 fires per 100,000 sold
Gas-powered cars: 1,530 fires per 100,000 sold
Hybrids , on the other hand, showed more instances than straight EV's.

Nevertheless, standards are being improved to make it even less prevalent. Using different materials and anodes should remedy most of it according to what I read anyway.
 
Jobs come and go.

IMO this transition will take a couple generations, 40-50 years, to complete.

Plenty of time for people to adjust and at the end we will see early retirement, retraining, etc…for displaced workers.

In the end I think we will see private ownership of vehicles drop dramatically and significant investment in mass transit, vehicle rentals, car services, etc….
 
What's the reason for still rotating tyres? I think that practice was abandoned years ago in the UK although in some countries require winter tyres to be fitted in winter.
What will happen to petrol stations, refineries? They will become the dumping grounds for abandoned petrol and diesel cars and EVs that are too expensive to repair.
 
What's the reason for still rotating tyres?
Few cars are 50-50 AWD, and even fewer also offer 4-wheel steering. So wear isn't even. Rotating front-to-back helps even wear. Usually when replacing worn tires you replace all 4 as a set, so why not extend the life (and safety) via rotation?

It's even worse for BEVs and PHEVs, because they are far heavier than the HEV or ICV of equivalent size. Far more tire wear and shedding of hazardous particles.
 
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Yeah good luck with that. Many organizations are dropping the ev craze. Ev sales are down. I dont know about the fires bobcat talked about, but I do know if a gas fire happens it can be put out easy and in a few mins. Ev fires are near impossible and burn hotter and tend to burst mass hot energy energy which more easily ignite other things near by.

Never will gas be abolished, and evs will fail. If we all hang around here in 2030, we will see. Lol.
 
Yeah good luck with that. Many organizations are dropping the ev craze. Ev sales are down. I dont know about the fires bobcat talked about, but I do know if a gas fire happens it can be put out easy and in a few mins. Ev fires are near impossible and burn hotter and tend to burst mass hot energy energy which more easily ignite other things near by.

Never will gas be abolished, and evs will fail. If we all hang around here in 2030, we will see. Lol.
Yes, and man will never fly. I had an electronics instructor in 1960 who said that transistors will never replace vacuum tubes because they weren't fast enough and couldn't handle high power.
 
It seems clear to most that our transition away from Internal combustion engines is happening, but it is likely to be a long process.
That's what I'm seeing, the transition will be gradual and subject to market forces and consumer demand. I'm not gonna be getting an EV charging cable any time soon. ;)
 
That's what I'm seeing, the transition will be gradual and subject to market forces and consumer demand. I'm not gonna be getting an EV charging cable any time soon. ;)
A new copper theft target are the cables at charging stations that are out in the open. A portable angle grinder can cut through one of them in under a minute. A local charging station here in west Toronto lost nine of them in one night.

In a related electric vehicle collision here in Toronto A Tesla with 5 adults in it crashed on the east bound Lakeshore boulevard, hitting an ARMCO barrier, then a concrete support pillar for the over head Gardiner Expressway. The Tesla was completely torn in half by the force of the impact. A passing vehicle driver used a steel bar to break out one of the front windows, and rescue a 23 year old woman. The other 4 occupants burned to death inside the Tesla.

The Toronto Fire Department brought a specially designed steel container to the scene and loaded the battery into it, then dumped 2 tons of sand on top of the battery, to prevent a later reignition of the battery . According to the TFD Chief, re-ignition, weeks afterwards is happening more and more, now. Special handling and training is now being done by fire services in many parts of the world.
 
I'm not holding my breath for hydrogen cars, whether fuel-cell or combustion based. Just too many issues.

However some more highly-engineered alternative to gasoline and diesel that burns more cleanly and extends petroleum sources might happen. This was the Ethanol Dream ("gasohol") though, and that didn't really pan out. Car fuel systems required more exotic materials to resist corrosion and at scale ethanol production is a net-negative energy source that consumes valuable farmland.

There are things like "synfuel" under development again. I just don't know how to predict whether those will be practical or whether burning them doesn't produce almost as much carbon dioxide as gasoline.

Battery-electric just has too many issues though. So many losses between power generation and miles going down the road.
 
I guess I'm saying that the future of gasoline/diesel infrastructure looks secure because viable changes will use the same facilities and much of the same infrastructure.
 
Yeah good luck with that. Many organizations are dropping the ev craze. Ev sales are down. I dont know about the fires bobcat talked about, but I do know if a gas fire happens it can be put out easy and in a few mins. Ev fires are near impossible and burn hotter and tend to burst mass hot energy energy which more easily ignite other things near by.

Never will gas be abolished, and evs will fail. If we all hang around here in 2030, we will see. Lol.
I checked two different sources to make sure, and apparently you have been given a bit of misinformation on EV sales being down. Here are the reports on EV sales:

According to new data from Kelley Blue Book, EV sales in the U.S. continued their upward trajectory in the third quarter of 2024, reaching new heights in both volume and market share.

Electric vehicle sales hit a new record in the U.S. in Q3 of 2024. According to recent figures automakers sold an estimated 346,309 EVs in the third quarter, a 5% increase from the second quarter. EVs accounted for 8.9% of the total auto sales—the highest ever on record—marking an increase from 7.8% during the same period last year.
 
I checked two different sources to make sure, and apparently you have been given a bit of misinformation on EV sales being down. Here are the reports on EV sales:

According to new data from Kelley Blue Book, EV sales in the U.S. continued their upward trajectory in the third quarter of 2024, reaching new heights in both volume and market share.

Electric vehicle sales hit a new record in the U.S. in Q3 of 2024. According to recent figures automakers sold an estimated 346,309 EVs in the third quarter, a 5% increase from the second quarter. EVs accounted for 8.9% of the total auto sales—the highest ever on record—marking an increase from 7.8% during the same period last year.
Yeah not sure where you are getting that from...

But this week on GM's third-quarter earnings call, Barra and GM struck a more sober tone. The company announced with its quarterly results that it's abandoning its targets to build 100,000 EVs in the second half of this year and another 400,000 by the first quarter next year due to slumping sales...

Auto Execs Are Coming Clean: EVs Aren't Working - Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
Electric vehicles have nearly 80% more problems and are generally less reliable than cars propelled by conventional internal combustion engines, according to a new report from Consumer Reports.
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) have an even worse scorecard, with an average of almost 150% more problems, the consumer group found. By contrast, ordinary hybrid cars are a "bright spot," with about a quarter fewer problems than gas-powered cars, the analysis found.
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
Apple stated that it will no longer try to build an EV, and will instead focus on AI technology. Ford announced a pause in its delivery of the new F-150 Lightning pickup trucks, citing quality control problems. Mercedes no longer plans to go all electric by 2030, and said it will only make the EVs that drivers want to buy.
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
These announcements follow Ford’s January message in its investor earnings call that it had lost over $65,000 per EV sold in 2023; its October reduction in EV investment by $12 billion; and the delay in its $3.5 billion Michigan battery plant, a partnership with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited.
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
General Motors, meanwhile, has abandoned its goal of selling 400,000 EVs by June 2024.
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
Tesla has been slashing prices. Ford just cut the price of its Mustang Mach-E, too, plus it cut back production of its electric pickup. And General Motors is thinking about bringing back plug-in hybrids, possibly taking a step back from GM’s earlier commitment to shifting straight to pure EVs.
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
And now the EPA is considering slowing down requirements for automakers to sell more electric vehicles, dialing back what had been aggressive plans to move away from gas powered cars and SUVs.
https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10
These are just some of the headlines easily found. Ev's are a failure. Too expensive, too faulty, horrible reliability, many companies cutting the lines down to bare minimum. Mercedes only will build when you order. Not good for ev future.
 
The entire industry sees the writing on the wall.

GM and Honda ditch plan to build cheaper electric vehicles

It was predicted it would take 25 years to build and provide charging stations all over the us and Can. If govt are involved-50 years!
It was doomed to fail.
No infrastructure, horrible reliability, overpriced, pointless. They had a 100 mpg carburator in the 60's. By now we should be travelling 250 -500 mpg. Shelving tech to control markets is always the goal.

Ev's will disappear. Maybe pop up in the future. Waaay in the future.
 
I watch a daily show by a national company that brokers vehicle purchases, extended warranties, etc. in addition to information about individual vehicle models and trim levels and general car buying and ownership/maintenance advice.

They often have new and used car dealers on, some operating several lots, as well as used car wholesalers. Often they do coverage of new car shows, or go right out to deal lots and report on what they find there.

There is no question that BEV and PHEV sales are down. Way down. Dealers are saying "do not send us more of these, we can't sell them" to manufacturers. Several have lost their dealer franchises over the matter. Others are in a bind because the manufacturer requires dealers to make steep investment in on-premise charging stations, trying to prop the sagging public infrastructure.


KBB has become an industry joke, a known shill of the executive suites. It isn't the company that it was even 20 years ago. You didn't cite your other source, but I hope it is more reputable.

As I said though, these threads are crypto-political advancing an agenda.
 
Yeah not sure where you are getting that from...

But this week on GM's third-quarter earnings call, Barra and GM struck a more sober tone. The company announced with its quarterly results that it's abandoning its targets to build 100,000 EVs in the second half of this year and another 400,000 by the first quarter next year due to slumping sales...

Auto Execs Are Coming Clean: EVs Aren't Working - Business Insider
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Electric vehicles have nearly 80% more problems and are generally less reliable than cars propelled by conventional internal combustion engines, according to a new report from Consumer Reports.
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) have an even worse scorecard, with an average of almost 150% more problems, the consumer group found. By contrast, ordinary hybrid cars are a "bright spot," with about a quarter fewer problems than gas-powered cars, the analysis found.
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Apple stated that it will no longer try to build an EV, and will instead focus on AI technology. Ford announced a pause in its delivery of the new F-150 Lightning pickup trucks, citing quality control problems. Mercedes no longer plans to go all electric by 2030, and said it will only make the EVs that drivers want to buy.
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
These announcements follow Ford’s January message in its investor earnings call that it had lost over $65,000 per EV sold in 2023; its October reduction in EV investment by $12 billion; and the delay in its $3.5 billion Michigan battery plant, a partnership with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited.
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
General Motors, meanwhile, has abandoned its goal of selling 400,000 EVs by June 2024.
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
Tesla has been slashing prices. Ford just cut the price of its Mustang Mach-E, too, plus it cut back production of its electric pickup. And General Motors is thinking about bringing back plug-in hybrids, possibly taking a step back from GM’s earlier commitment to shifting straight to pure EVs.
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
And now the EPA is considering slowing down requirements for automakers to sell more electric vehicles, dialing back what had been aggressive plans to move away from gas powered cars and SUVs.
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working
These are just some of the headlines easily found. Ev's are a failure. Too expensive, too faulty, horrible reliability, many companies cutting the lines down to bare minimum. Mercedes only will build when you order. Not good for ev future.
Well, for one your info is a year old, and I think you are confusing GM and Ford with the overall EV market. That's like saying Jack-In-The-Box and Carl's Jr. aren't making money on their version of burgers, and meanwhile the sales of burgers in the US is still on the rise. They don't own the market. It's the overall picture that tells the story, not the individual players.

Here are the sources for the big picture:
https://www.kbb.com/car-news/ev-sal...ter/?msockid=176b80c4be566034281a90b5bf8a6149

Electric Vehicle Sales Mark Another Record in Q3, Thanks to Higher Incentives, More Choices - Cox Automotive Inc.
 
The closure of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland
has been announced, I can't remember the date that
was quoted, but everybody is up-in-arms about it and
so they should be, there is very little industry left in the
country, plus to ship oil from elsewhere, will add to the
price, not all oil refined, is for vehicles, there is heating
oil and lubrication oil, to name a few.

Mike.
 
The entire industry sees the writing on the wall.

GM and Honda ditch plan to build cheaper electric vehicles

It was predicted it would take 25 years to build and provide charging stations all over the us and Can. If govt are involved-50 years!
It was doomed to fail.
No infrastructure, horrible reliability, overpriced, pointless. They had a 100 mpg carburator in the 60's. By now we should be travelling 250 -500 mpg. Shelving tech to control markets is always the goal.

Ev's will disappear. Maybe pop up in the future. Waaay in the future.
Well the recent forecasts for 2025 and beyond by J.P. Morgan and Bloomberg say otherwise, so no offense, but I will side with them.
 
If (or when) needs be, I'm certain the US feds will subsidize adding charging stations to gas stations. They might even subsidize electric auto mechanic training, though automobiles are already mostly electric.

Engines with moving parts will need oil-based lubricants for quite some time, and I'm pretty sure fossil by-products are used in the production of electric car batteries as well. And they have to be refined. Airplanes and rockets will need fossil fuel until we discover how to defy gravity. That will happen at some point, prompting another major transition.
 
The closure of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland
has been announced, I can't remember the date that
was quoted, but everybody is up-in-arms about it and
so they should be, there is very little industry left in the
country, plus to ship oil from elsewhere, will add to the
price, not all oil refined, is for vehicles, there is heating
oil and lubrication oil, to name a few.

Mike.
It's always sad to see things like this happen, and it's difficult for people to deal with when it does. Change is always happening in the world, and it always will. I don't know how they will deal with this, but my hope is that they and many others will figure out a way to adapt and think of something.

I remember the company Kodak which practically invented photography. They mostly ignored the trend to digital photography (Which oddly enough, they even invented), until it was too late, and it eventually led to bankruptcy.

Things never stay the same, and those who do, end up with heartache. Montgomery Ward is another example.
Anyway, Mike, I'm sorry this trend has affected the people who worked at the refinery, and I really hope they can find a way to rise from this.
 

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