At least someone sees the oportunity, and is pushing up the production dates.

The problem is there are so many cool things taking off at once, I am not sure which way to turn.

TaTa motors in India is producing the first Air Cars next month. 6 passenger car running on compressed air, max speed of 68, max distance of 180, on board plug in compressor, tanks made from carbon fiber so they split rather then explode. Supposed to be in the US next year for under $18K, with a max speed over 75 and a distance of over 1000 miles. Best thing, no spendy batteries to replace.

I will be waiting a bit to buy a new car untill I see how this all shakes out.

The "green-shift" will bring in electric cars, and make lots of changes.

Recharge points need to be in "destination-parking-locations" not at some odd corner where nothing else is.

Repair garages will still have work in changing ball joints and other assorted repairs, and also converting cars to electric power.

Some fuel stations will still be necessary, as the ICE will not entirely disappear, but we will see fewer and fewer. Old gas stations will make great convenience stores, or car sales lots or even homes ... We never ask what happened to the buggy whip factories.

Travel of over 100 miles is much more common in the US than in the UK, so the situation will probably be different over here. For example, the state of Florida alone is about 500 miles from end to end, and both locals and tourists frequently make day trips of over 100 miles. Some people have to commute to work over 50 miles each way (very expensive these days). So there will be a greater need for "filling station" here.

Some of this need can be met by putting charging stations in hotel and motel parking lots/carparks, so that vehicles can be recharged overnight. For charges that are needed during the day, a recharging station can charge to a capacitor bank rather than directly to the batteries, reducing the required charge time.

Careful, you said green shift: you might get sued.

Hehe - more urban space to grow veg in containers in :-)

I think there lies a great opportunity to use gas stations as community service areas. They readily are located strategically for people, so why not:

1 - Convert them to Urban Gardens.

2 - Use them as small community parks.

3- Use them for Civic engagement like polling places, police stations, shelters, clinics and hospitals small community schools

4. Erect wind turbines, put solar roofs

5. Create hydroponic gardens.

6. Vertical farms

The geeky one:

7- Cloud computing relay centers

We're already seeing gas stations disappear around here as profit margins decrease and the weaker drop out.

The land gets converted to other commercial use.

Charging points are likely to be at motels, shopping centers, workplaces, restaurants, parking garages, etc.

No need for dedicated charging real estate when an existing parking space can be converted to a profit center for any number of businesses.

i hope that's true. you still see lines of cars in the gas stations. well, now the numbers are shrinking. now what you can do with those "wastelands" is replace them with gardens and trees!!!

The problem with gas stations is that their lots are often so highly polluted from decades of gasoline spills that they cannot be used by another business for years.

I think parking meters would be good candidates for charge up. Overnight parking on side streets with fee charging might work.

People are developing capacitors which can charge up and discharge rapidly. A 'charge up' might take 8 - 10 minutes. Which would be good for local stations.

Perhaps we will see more hydrogen and compressed natural gas cars.

vsk

You don't see a lot of pure 'gas stations' anymore precisely because the profit margins are so low. Mostly they have been converted or replaced by 'convenience stores'. They profit through the sale of snack foods, beverages, cigarettes, basic groceries, etc. Fuel is more of a way to draw in customers than a source of profit, especially when considering that a high percentage of customers now pay with credit or debit cards whose transaction fees cut into the station's profits.

Previous comments had it right...in the US, distances between population centers are larger, so it'll take some time before we see a dramatic reduction in the number of filling stations. For this reason, I think that mainstream consumers in the US are always going to demand a range-extended electric vehicle, such as the upcoming Chevy Volt to provide a backup to battery power when it's not possible or convenient to recharge.

The Volt is touting an all-electric range of around 40 miles, which is good for a lot of every-day driving, but owners will definitely find themselves tapping into the liquid fuel source at times. However, being able to use electric power even half the time is going to significantly reduce the owner's consumption of liquid fuels and in turn their need to stop at a filling station. So, as all-electric or PHEV's begin to enter the marketplace, the same number of stations will be competing for fewer customers. Naturally some will fall by the wayside. As battery technology continues to evolve, the range of electric or hybrid-electric vehicles is going to increase, but in the near term manufacturers are pretty much maxing out the capacity that is still affordable to the average buyer.

However, it will be interesting to see if local customers are still willing to stop for coffee and a doughnut even though they don't need fuel. If sales of convenience items don't fall off, then we may not see a large drop in the number of filling stations after all. What I think we would see, however, are stations with a small number of liquid fuel pumps (gasoline, diesel, ethanol, other?) instead of dozens as we have today. Most likely they would also offer electrical charging stations for those who have the time to recharge. I think we would also see an expansion of in-store products and services in order to retain customers and make up for a drop off in fuel demand.

Long haul trucks use about 25% of the fuel in the US. Converting to some sort of serial hybrid will reduce that some, but there will still be a need for some filling stations because an all electic will not have the range they need. Also the early electics will last a long time, so serial hybrids need to be considered from a grandfather perspective.

I tend to think that in the U.S. the need for on-the-go refueling will be greater than in other countries. For super-commuters, though I would recommend they find a way to waste less time in their cars, they might be able to convince employers to put in charging stations for daytime charging. But those rare long trips or driving-heavy days are the main reason I think PHEV will win out over all-electric in the short term. There may be fewer stations, or it may be that instead of dedicated stations we have convenience stores or whatever that also have a fuel pump out back. Whether that fuel will be gas, diesel, hydrogen, or something else remains to be seen.
Also remember, that commercial vehicles routinely drive long distances and will continue to need fueling stations, since no one is going to be talking about an all-electric long-distance big rig for a while yet.

Lets hope that gas stations go by the wayside and either get replaced by hydrogen stations or electric cars take over. Either situation would put us in a much better position that we are currently in. Great picture too.

Bicycle and velocar repair hubs?

The next logical step after PHEVs is fast-charging EVs. Rather than paying 10¢/kWh to charge in your garage at night, you pay 50¢/kWh in a freeway rest area to charge in 10 minutes. We have the batteries (Lithium Iron Phosphate) and the plugs (AeroVironment chargers). We need to ignore the dead-end Hydrogen Highway and focus on the Electron Expressway.

They won't go away. They'll just be converted into hydrogen or electric fuel stations.

Paving the way for real next generation infrastructure for hydrogen and electric!

Notice the sign in the photo... the S has fallen off... spells out what we can look forward to as the oil companies fight tooth and nail in their death throws... and yet... we've hardly made a dent into the non-renewable energy infrastructure... will we save civilization before it collapses under peak oil? Not unless we can develop baseload. The chemistry is there, while the investors are not. ExxonMobil wants to perpetuate the agony by selling a membrane for liquid li-ion chemistry, when they should instead fund the next generation, high-density solid-state. McCain promised $300 million for battery research, but that's just to bride the EV industry in supporting a nuclear renaissance. Google and the TED group should be funding the next generation of battery chemistry, not the nuclear power industry!

Notice the sign in the photo... the S has fallen off... spells out what we can look forward to as the oil companies fight tooth and nail in their death throws... and yet... we've hardly made a dent into the non-renewable energy infrastructure... will we save civilization before it collapses under peak oil? Not unless we can develop baseload. The chemistry is there, while the investors are not. ExxonMobil wants to perpetuate the agony by selling a membrane for liquid li-ion chemistry, when they should instead fund the next generation, high-density solid-state. McCain promised $300 million for battery research, but that's just to bride the EV industry in supporting a nuclear renaissance. Google and the TED group should be funding the next generation of battery chemistry, not the nuclear power industry!

It's true that most of the time most vehicle owners wouldn't need to visit a charging station if their electric vehicle could be charged at home. However the 1% or so of the charges where it wouldn't be possible to charge at home are in fact very important.