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Transportation

Half of Petrol Stations Expected To Close in Next Decade (dutchnews.nl) 128

Half of the Netherlands' petrol stations are set to close in the next five to 10 years as electric cars start to take over the market, according to ING Research. From a report: The bank's economists say there will be insufficient earnings in future, with only some 2,000 of today's 4,131 gas stations remaining. "It is mainly the small, unmanned petrol stations that will disappear," says ING Research, as reported in De Telegraaf. [...]

Owners are trying to maintain turnover by increasing their sales of food and beverages, maintenance services and even car washing, ING says. But the long-term business model of independent stations will be difficult to maintain. "A quick calculation shows how long petrol station owners can still sell petrol," Dirk Mulder, Trade & Retail sector banker at ING Research, said. "A new car remains in the Dutch fleet for an average of 19 years. The last petrol and diesel cars will come onto the market in 2034 and will stay on the road until approximately 2053."

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Half of Petrol Stations Expected To Close in Next Decade

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  • by YetAnotherDrew ( 664604 ) on Thursday July 04, 2024 @09:32PM (#64601535)
    What's next? Want to tell me about the horrors of climate change . . . in the Netherlands?
    • 25% of the country is already below sea level. And the mean elevation is 30 metres.
  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Thursday July 04, 2024 @09:36PM (#64601539) Journal

    According to https://www.statista.com/topic... [statista.com] ...only 2.8% of the cars in NL in 2021 were fully electric.

    A quick google gives you something like 1/3...but this includes HYBRIDS as EVs, and of course Hybrids take petrol.

    • The Government has set a target for 100% zero emission vehicle sales for 2030. Certainly ambitious, given that modelling suggests [sciencedirect.com] that it will be about a third for privately owned cars. But even that will have an impact on petrol sales.
      • Wow, they can draw a line.

      • Goals are great and all, but how many end up getting pushed back or scrapped when they can't survive reality? Even if they do go through with banning sales of new petrol vehicles, that just means that older petrol vehicles won't be replaced as quickly as they otherwise might or that they will be purchased outside of the country.

        The better idea is to avoid setting arbitrary targets and instead to look at what are the largest impediments to EV adoption and working to lessen or eliminate those. That'll get
        • This is a report from a research firm predicting the future. This is not a government mandate that all these stations must close. If all the factors are correct, investing in petrol stations and the companies that own them might be risky investments in the future.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      31% of new registrations are fully electric: https://autovista24.autovistag... [autovistagroup.com]

      The shift is pretty clear, and with an average age of about 11 years in The Netherlands, in a decade it does appear that there will be far fewer fossil cars on the road and far less demand for the fuel too.

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday July 05, 2024 @06:06AM (#64602243)

      According to https://www.statista.com/topic... [statista.com] ...only 2.8% of the cars in NL in 2021 were fully electric.

      A quick google gives you something like 1/3...but this includes HYBRIDS as EVs, and of course Hybrids take petrol.

      Do you not understand the difference between current status and future trends - taking into account changes in regulations influencing those trends?

      2.8% fully electric cars *NOW*. Also while PHEVs do take petrol, many of them don't actually use any. The guy across the street from me has a PHEV. He filled up once in the past *year*. It's not just ING who predict this, the industry itself is poised for a wholloping in the retail market which is precisely why a lot of oil majors are slowly getting out of the local petrol station business and consolidating along highways and large service stations where they know their business will be more secure (and also throwing chargers in at those locations).

      • So you don't apparently understand the difference between reality and government projections/promises?

        The simple fact is that the 'early adopters' are basically saturated, and the rest of the public is less interested in EVs than the fanbois insist they should be.

        Not to mention, basically all EVs are passenger vehicles; there are no serious numbers of EV light duty trucks nor semis although EVs are making some headway in some very narrow delivery niches.

        https://afdc.energy.gov/data/1... [energy.gov]

  • Uhhh... Norway (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostMyBeaver ( 1226054 ) on Thursday July 04, 2024 @09:58PM (#64601557)
    Classic gas stations are mostly disappearing. Pumps are replaced with chargers at locations that can support it. Mostly unmanned stations still sell gas and diesel. Food and tobacco are what keeps normal stations staffed. A charger can deliver up to 400KVA/hr, but the average is 75KVA since a single early gen BEV charges at 10-15KVA in winter. And the charger is active maybe 25% of the time.
    A single active charger will deliver about 75MW per year. But you need to have a minimum of 5 chargers in a good location to keep even one "active" as people will avoid queues. So, assume, five chargers will deliver 2.5 times one active. So, 187.5MW/year which is about 120,000 euro.
    To install and maintain those five chargers will require justifying an ROI of 3-5 years.
    What this means is, small gas stations can't make the change. Especially if they don't want to become fast food restaurants.
    In Norway, we made the change and we expect it to take longer up north, they keep cars longer and prefer used over new, and... BEVs still struggled in -25C, but in the tropical south where we're only 5-10 degrees below much of the year, we have all adapted to the EV world. Most of us don't even notice gas stations anymore
  • I recently watched a Murco petrol station in the UK be replaced by a brand spanking new BP station.

    The problems with this are:

    - The Murco never had any customers, as it's in a tiny tinpot little town and is really awkward to get to and park in (basically on a single-lane two-way road, with road parking, so every morning it's just a jam of coaches, school buses, HGVs etc. trying to navigate a tiny town where you cannot make it through without giving way at least 5-6 times... almost every 50m or so).

    - There a

  • The main reason is that too many Americans are stuck on gas-guzzling SUVs, don't want to swap battery packs, and don't want to wait for an EV to charge. They want their Costco haul and McDonald's Big Mac right now, and don't care how they're made. As such, as absurd and illogical as it sounds, climate change isn't really a concern for most Americans and they don't really care so long as gasoline remains under $3/gallon.
    • So make "gasoline" $3.01 per gallon & stop pandering to knuckle-draggers.
    • Because America wasn't built with walking in mind. If there was a fully stocked store a five minute walk away from me then sure i would go every day. But as it happens the nearest full grocery store to me is a Costco but it is a three hour walk away. A bike may be an hour but i just don't have that kind of time. I'm not sure how i would get the 50 lb box of kitty litter on a bike with all the other groceries anyway.
    • I'm happy to wait to charge, if there were someplace for me to charge.

      There isn't, and I can't afford the purchase price.

      The manufacturers are putting DRM into battery packs to prevent third party replacement so that they can charge exorbitant prices for replacements, probably as a means of appeasing dealers in order to get them to sell EVs that threaten their ICEV service revenues.

      I have never owned a new car, and can't afford to buy a used EV and put a battery pack in it at protectionist prices.

      Climate ch

  • Most of them are little supermarkets that sell petrol on the side, since the margin on fuel is not that high.
    Delhaize, AH to go, Spar, Albert Heijn ...

    Also people go there for the ATM and the Postomats or whatever they are called, where people can get their Amazon packages 24/7.

    They'll just slowly replace the pumps with Superchargers.

    • No. Most of them are petrol stations which make high margins on other products. Don't confuse convenience with necessity. People buy things from petrol stations because they are there filling up. The vast majority of customers will disappear if the demand for petrol or a key product goes. That key product is rapidly becoming tabaco with the new supermarket sales ban.

      Ban sales of tabaco at petrol stations, and they will effectively cease to be. There are far more supermarkets around in more convenient locati

      • 'No. Most of them are petrol stations which make high margins on other products. Don't confuse convenience with necessity. People buy things from petrol stations because they are there filling up. '

        Not where I live. I fill up every 5 weeks (Smart car) but I'm at the station 3-5 times a week, for a sandwich, milk or anything I forgot, to get my Amazon packages and the ATM.

        'The vast majority of customers will disappear if the demand for petrol or a key product goes. That key product is rapidly becoming tabaco

      • Which may be why they're predicting for many of the petrol stations to close. If people can instead charge when they go to the grocery store, food place, or similar, they probably will.
        Even here in the USA I've noticed that gas stations are tending to offer more stuff. Things that you can do in the store that take more time.

  • Two or three Buc-ee's could provide service to the entire Netherlands.
  • There's an old saying that goes something like "People who say it can't be done should stay out of the way of people who are already doing it" and this article about the Netherlands is a perfect example. Lots of posts about the impossibility of doing what the Netherlands has already done. People need to learn the difference between "I can't do it" and "It can't be done". It seems like a lot of people consider these to be synonyms in all sorts of contexts, not just cars.

  • Where is the Netherlands going to get all that electricity from?
  • In my neck of the woods, the local zoning board is reviewing plans for a new development not far from me. Replacing a mix of forest, fields, and a former drive-in theater with 25 fresh acres of pavement. The plan is a mix of apartment buildings at various rent levels (definitely needed - local vacancy rates are below 0.5%) and light commercial/retail.

    And right at the entrance...a brand new gas station. Did I mention it's 100 feet from the river? Oh, and there's already 4 other gas stations within hal
  • They can close the petrol stations, as long as the gas stations stay open.
    • They can close half of them so long as it's the half that are on the wrong side of the road for me.
      • by kackle ( 910159 )
        Nice. Maybe they could only open those on the side of the most traffic during a given hour. That way, they could have their way, closing half the stations, but we get access to the ones we need, when we need them!
  • On a related note, over half of the population of the Netherlands will have to walk long distances to get anything done in the next 10 years.

After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.

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