Lamenting the decline of the car

[trueviking]

Fewer cars not electric cars.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by trueviking

Fewer cars not electric cars.

Both?

We need more pedestrianized cities. But we also need the cars we have to be non-emitting.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I think people misunderstand the difference between availability and convenience. I've got 4 gas stations within a 1 km radius of my condo here in Ottawa, just outside the downtown core. I'm willing to bet that 1-2 of them are toast in 15 years. It'll be even worse in suburban areas. They all have garages they can charge in. And they have longer distances to drive. So adoption will be high. And with it the gas stations that are already further apart will decline. Some will close. So while gas and diesel will be available for a while, it's less likely that getting it will be convenient. And it'll get harder with each year that goes by.

There are a lot of gas stations across Canada, though. Even if more than half of them are gone in 10 or 15 years time, that still leaves many gas stations. Of the 13 gas stations that are either in my neighbourhood or just across the river from it, I only need one to remain in business before getting gas suddenly means I have to venture to another part of town.

I'm not disputing that the tipping point will happen because it's clear that it will. But I see it really happening in a big way once the supply of new gas powered cars is cut off. I don't expect things to be wildly different much before then.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by esquire

There are a lot of gas stations across Canada, though. Even if more than half of them are gone in 10 or 15 years time, that still leaves many gas stations. Of the 13 gas stations that are either in my neighbourhood or just across the river from it, I only need one to remain in business before getting gas suddenly means I have to venture to another part of town.

I'm not disputing that the tipping point will happen because it's clear that it will. But I see it really happening in a big way once the supply of new gas powered cars is cut off. I don't expect things to be wildly different much before then.

I guess what might happen is while getting gas in urban locations would remain easy, getting it in rural locations, on road trips, might become hard. Essentially the opposite situation to how it is now with EVs.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Both?

We need more pedestrianized cities. But we also need the cars we have to be non-emitting.

true. I hear a lot of people who think the easy solution to solving our environmental problem is to switch out Canada's 35 million cars for 35 million electric cars. The environmental impact of using a 4,000 pound machine to move one person (most often) around a city is far more than what comes out of the tailpipe.

The world is projected to have 1 billion electric cars by 2040, but by that time the total number of cars will have gone from 1.4 billion to 3 billion. It has doubled every 20 years for the last 40.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I guess what might happen is while getting gas in urban locations would remain easy, getting it in rural locations, on road trips, might become hard. Essentially the opposite situation to how it is now with EVs.

Possibly true, although on the other hand I could see rural areas being some of the last bastions of gas-powered cars. On the prairies there are a lot of trucks and notwithstanding the electric F150s hitting the market I think the change will take some time.

Also, a lot of the EVs currently on the market are not available in rural areas (which tend to be dominated by the Big 3 US carmakers... you need a fairly sizable town before you start getting import dealers), and many of the EVs on the road tend to be city-oriented and not the kind of cars rural dwellers tend to go for.

So all this is to say that I could see gas stations hanging on in rural areas, and certainly along major highways like the TCH, the Yellowhead and such.

[MonctonRad]

Agree wholeheartedly.

Aside from some isolated towns off the beaten track, I don't foresee any real difficulty in gassing up until well after 2040. You might have to drive 20-30 km to do it, but the option will still be there.

There will however most definitely be progressively fewer and fewer gas stations all the time, probably starting about 2030 or so. There will also probably be less selection, and maybe fewer pumps at each station (turning some capacity over to EV charging stations).

[WarrenC12]

Regarding EV charging infrastructure, NRCan has rolled out 2 phases of funding, I'm not sure if there's a 3rd phase coming, perhaps in the next set of election promises:

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-effic...plicants/19464

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-effic...plicants/21738

Note that this includes things other than EVs. You can see that a typical fast charger is $50k/stall, whereas Hydrogen stations are a cool million.

Tesla numbers show even lower than $50k based on the volume of their deployment, and they are also the newest, fastest versions that top out at 250kW.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Agree wholeheartedly.

Aside from some isolated towns off the beaten track, I don't foresee any real difficulty in gassing up until well after 2040. You might have to drive 20-30 km to do it, but the option will still be there.

There will however most definitely be progressively fewer and fewer gas stations all the time, probably starting about 2030 or so. There will also probably be less selection, and maybe fewer pumps at each station (turning some capacity over to EV charging stations).

Yeah, I fully agree that at some point the tipping point will be reached... I just don't think it's going to be too soon given that loads of fuel powered cars are being sold today and many of them will still be on the road 15 years from now.

[MolsonExport]

i gotta ask: now that gas is back to being extremely expensive, how the hell do so many people afford to fill up their gigantic pickup trucks? do they enjoy paying $150 or more to fill up?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by esquire

There are a lot of gas stations across Canada, though. Even if more than half of them are gone in 10 or 15 years time, that still leaves many gas stations. Of the 13 gas stations that are either in my neighbourhood or just across the river from it, I only need one to remain in business before getting gas suddenly means I have to venture to another part of town.

Oh I am not disputing the fact that many gas stations will still be around in 15 years. I am suggesting that the level of convenience won't be the same. Right now, you almost never have to think about how to find gas in any urban or suburban area. You can practically walk to a gas station in any city or suburb. Every gas station that closes takes away from that.

Originally Posted by esquire

I'm not disputing that the tipping point will happen because it's clear that it will. But I see it really happening in a big way once the supply of new gas powered cars is cut off. I don't expect things to be wildly different much before then.

It will really accelerate after 2035. That's for sure. But I see it really moving in the cities and suburbs long before then.

[MonctonRad]

To be quite honest, there are many city centres in Canada right now where gas stations are inconspicuous unless you know where they are. What will happen in 2035 is that this phenomenon will spread to the inner suburbs too. The retail suburban strips will be where most people will gas up.

If I was to guess a point in time where gas stations will become critically endangered it would likely be 2045-50.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Aside from some isolated towns off the beaten track, I don't foresee any real difficulty in gassing up until well after 2040. You might have to drive 20-30 km to do it, but the option will still be there.

If you have to drive 20-30 km out of your way regularly to fill up, an EV is going to start looking really attractive.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

There will however most definitely be progressively fewer and fewer gas stations all the time, probably starting about 2030 or so. There will also probably be less selection, and maybe fewer pumps at each station (turning some capacity over to EV charging stations).

I am not sure there's as much value in replacing gas pumps with electric charging stations as people think. There's a certain baseline cost to retailing gas, with the underground storage tanks, main pumps, etc. That cost stays the same or doesn't scale as proportionally, regardless of whether the station has 4 pumps or 8 pumps. If they are doing the work of ripping out the pumps, I suspect as the years go on, the owners might just decided to go all the way.

Originally Posted by milomilo

I guess what might happen is while getting gas in urban locations would remain easy, getting it in rural locations, on road trips, might become hard. Essentially the opposite situation to how it is now with EVs.

I see it going the other way. Land in urban areas is very valuable. Gas stations have been shutting down and getting redeveloped in cities for years. For example, in New York, they call certain neighbourhoods "gasoline deserts". As soon as we see more EV charging solutions for condo and apartment dwellers, be that charging at their residence or using public chargers at grocery stores, I think we'll see this trend really accelerate.

I'm torn on whether suburban stations are next or in the vanguard. They have land that is less valuable. But they have a customer base that would be the most motivated to adopt EVs. Suburbanites have garages and are most likely to commute by car daily.

Rural areas are probably going to be last. The land they sit on isn't valuable. Their customer base has demanding requirements and is probably highly resistant to change, so they'll take a while coming around to EVs. There's also more toys (quads, boats, etc.) that will take a while to switch and mitigate some of the demand lost to auto electrification.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

To be quite honest, there are many city centres in Canada right now where gas stations are inconspicuous unless you know where they are. What will happen in 2035 is that this phenomenon will spread to the inner suburbs too. The retail suburban strips will be where most people will gas up.

If I was to guess a point in time where gas stations will become critically endangered it would likely be 2045-50.

Like I posted earlier. Norway is starting to see stations close. And something like only 15-20% of the vehicles on the road are electric. They are planning on banning gas car sales by 2025 though. So that's probably part of it. Nevertheless, given the margins these places run on, they really, the business case to continue retailing gas starts to become questionable for a lot of places. Especially in urban and suburban areas where the land may be worth a lot.

The way I see it, urban gas stations are toast. Many will be gone by 2035. I think all of them will be gone by 2040. I think a lot of the smaller suburban stations will close by 2035. I am talking about the ones that don't have a carwash and/or the fast food drive thru attached. If all they have are gas pumps and the convenience store, it's going to look awfully tempting to just redevelop the whole thing as a fast food joint or convenience store with all the parking dedicated to EV charging. Or even just a low rise building or plaza. In a lot of suburban areas, gas stations have prime locations at major intersections. At a certain point, the value of doing something else with the land exceeds that of retailing gas.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

i gotta ask: now that gas is back to being extremely expensive, how the hell do so many people afford to fill up their gigantic pickup trucks? do they enjoy paying $150 or more to fill up?

I wonder this too. Everytime I fill up, any daydreams of a larger vehicle are crushed instantly. And we have a hybrid with a 45L tank that we generally fill twice a month. How do the folks driving pickups everyday afford it? Especially the suburbanites who burn so much of that just sitting in traffic.

[MonctonRad]

As long as there are ICE vehicles, there will be gas stations to serve them, but the dwindling number of gas stations will need to remain profitable in order to survive.

Even now, most service stations don't rely on their margins selling gas in order to generate a profit. They rely on their ancillary services (car wash, convenience store and fast food). They view the gas pumps as helping to drive their other business.

I suspect that as demand for gasoline goes down, these service stations will look towards chargers to drive customer traffic rather than their gas pumps. At the same time, in order to maintain their legacy pumps, I imagine that the margins they charge for their gasoline products will go up.

As the volume of gas produced by refineries also goes down, I imagine the refinery wholesale price will also go up. Add in escalating carbon taxes and gas in 2040 will be a whole lot more expensive than it is now.

It will be a virtuous circle leading to the end of the ICE vehicle by 2050 or so.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Like I posted earlier. Norway is starting to see stations close. And something like only 15-20% of the vehicles on the road are electric. They are planning on banning gas car sales by 2025 though. So that's probably part of it. Nevertheless, given the margins these places run on, they really, the business case to continue retailing gas starts to become questionable for a lot of places. Especially in urban and suburban areas where the land may be worth a lot.

For what it's worth, a declining number of gas stations has been a trend in Canada for quite a while now. When I was a kid in the 80s there were a lot of small 2, 3 or 4 pump gas stations scattered around Winnipeg and those are almost gone now. Most of the ones remaining are quite big. There are no gas stations left in downtown Winnipeg... the last one closed several years ago. That can't be a result of EVs considering that the trend ran its course in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

However, they continue to open up in the suburbs. To my surprise a brand new Shell opened up in my neck of the woods just last year.

[MonctonRad]

Yeah, there have been a few new gas stations opened up in Moncton over the last several years too. You have to shake your head and wonder why, especially given the pre-existing installed base of service stations in the city. Certain suburban collectors are already lined by one gas station after another.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by esquire

For what it's worth, a declining number of gas stations has been a trend in Canada for quite a while now. When I was a kid in the 80s there were a lot of small 2, 3 or 4 pump gas stations scattered around Winnipeg and those are almost gone now. Most of the ones remaining are quite big. There are no gas stations left in downtown Winnipeg... the last one closed several years ago. That can't be a result of EVs considering that the trend ran its course in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

I do remember some of those smaller places even in Toronto/GTA in the early 90s. A lot of them are gone. I think that just speaks to what I was saying earlier. The fixed costs probably don't make sense unless you have a certain number of pumps. And that number has probably been going up over the years. I suspect a lot of the old places were probably also attached to small garages and parts shops in years past. And as the concept of a small mechanic shop went from main street to suburban industrial unit, so did the idea of small gas stations.

Originally Posted by esquire

However, they continue to open up in the suburbs. To my surprise a brand new Shell opened up in my neck of the woods just last year.

How new is your area? Around the parts of Toronto and Ottawa that I am familiar with, I haven't seen any new gas stations open, except for those near new subdivisions.

I am really curious to see how this goes over next decade. We're only now seeing EVs in the high demand categories (CUVs and SUVs). But they aren't extremely price competitive yet. That's probably going to change by 2025. So if you're building a suburban gas station in 2025, what's your math knowing that probably 90% of your customers are going to ditch gas over the next 15 years?

And it's not just EVs. Fuel efficiency regulations themselves are tightening up as Biden scraps Trump's pause on CAFE regulations. So unless they are in an area that is seeing job and population growth, the likelihood of demand for gas growing is probably pretty low. A lot of places will be seeing demand declines annually from 2025 out.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Yeah, there have been a few new gas stations opened up in Moncton over the last several years too. You have to shake your head and wonder why, especially given the pre-existing installed base of service stations in the city. Certain suburban collectors are already lined by one gas station after another.

I have an intersection with two gas stations at the corner near me. And both of those are 300m from a third gas station. Every time I jog by there I wonder. A plaza at that intersection, which is only slightly larger than one of the gas stations got listed for $8M. There's a complex of two 30+ storey buildings and an 8 storey hotel coming up at that intersection too. At some point, the owners of at least one of the gas stations has gotta be wondering how much more they'd get just by selling out.

I am guess Moncton doesn't have the same development pressure. And there isn't as much pressing demand to do anything else with all that land. So might as well open a gas station?