Ask HN: In 15 years, what will a gas station visit look like?
21 thomassmith65 70 6/8/2025, 11:20:03 PM
This struck me as an interesting sci-fi writing exercise. Gas stations are everywhere; but they'll likely change considerably going forward.
Imagine visiting a gas station in 2040:
• will it sell gas?
• what convenience items will it sell?
• who, if anyone, will staff it?
• what payment methods will it accept?
• what signage and decor will it use?
• will it offer new services?
tokens used: 775, model: OpenAI API (o4-mini-2025-04-16)
- now having larger buildings to incorporate more convenience products (mostly foodstuffs) for sale - more pumps
Today, every gas station is self-serve, and often you can pay by card at the pump.
50 years ago, plenty of gas stations still had attendants. One guy would fill the tank (possibly with 'leaded'), another might give your windshield a quick wipe. You could ask for them to check your oil, too.
Not too much has changed since the '80s though.
That’s definitely an innovation that creates convenience but does it really change the commercial function of the station much? You are still essentially transacting for fuel, which is what gas stations have done for decades. My guess is while a lot of stations provide that ability out of customer demand, but the owners would probably rather the customer come in and buy the over priced soda and Doritos along with the gas purchase. I don’t think owner-operators make hardly anything on the fuel sales.
With my comment I was thinking more along the lines of overall footprint of the station and what products are being sold. I think self-service pushed the ability for stations to service more pumps and with a person anchored to a register inside instead of outside attending to the pumps, it allowed the ability of stations to expand to more a mini-mart concept easily where more profitable products (to the station owner) are sold.
EV charging might help bring people into the food, but i suspect you don’t “turn tables” fast enough to make EV charging beneficial enough to bringing enough people inside to warrant devoting a lot of space to that activity.
My locals all:
Sell petrol
Sell snacks, meals and necessities (small convenience stores)
Sell firewood
Sell ice
Provide gas bottle swaps.
Sell large items that are convenient for ute tray transport (Slabs of drink and other items)
Provide free water and air, basic car wash facilities.
15 years from now I expect all of the above (It will take 20 years to get rid of petrol cars when the last one is sold)
Plus more common ev charging. Maybe battery swaps.
On highways, it will be a different situation. There will be plenty of gas and diesel still available, as the remaining business from towns becomes more concentrated. You won't find a gas station without a restaurant attached though. Fast chargers will be common, but ultra-fast ones won't be as common as we'd like, as they will want to keep you just long enough to buy a meal, etc.
https://www.axios.com/2022/07/15/gas-stations-prices-closing
Perhaps some larger chain will step in, and incorporate one dinky petrol station at each location? The safety issues probably rule out a chain restaurant, but maybe Walmart will become the go-to.
Petrol won’t go away overnight, but it will reach tipping points where it’s no longer cost effective to deliver it to areas or host a petrol station once an inflection point occurs with regards to demand.
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/how-big-a-deal-is-walmarts-p...
https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2023/04/06/leading-the-ch...
https://www.plugshare.com/
https://supercharge.info/map
https://electrek.co/2023/10/20/cratering-motor-fuel-sales-in... (great comment on this: “Every day in the U.S. now there is enough EVs sold to displace an entire gas station-worth of fuel. Per day. And this is rapidly accelerating.”)
From a month and a half ago: "Walmart plans EV Charging network which will blanket the US within a few years" [1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43814380
Rebates exist for a reason to install EV chargers at home. Certainly, it will take time, but the transition is inevitable at this point. The average daily round trip commute is less than 40 miles, which is ~12 hours of charging on a 15A 120V household outlet. Electricity is ubiquitous, and installing interfaces is relatively inexpensive and straightforward.
Yes and especially diesel which will not go away for a few generations. There are no EV replacements for heavy trucks and they do not appear to be viable yet. 3500 through 7500 series. Battery tech will have to make science fiction level improvements. When those trucks are gone society comes to a stand-still. Comparison to earth moving equipment in mines do not apply.
what convenience items will it sell?
The popular versions of what they sell today and is known to bring in revenue.
who, if anyone, will staff it?
Mostly high-school kids, some people that do not have the confidence to move on and some with criminal backgrounds.
what payment methods will it accept?
Credit, Debit, Cash. Maybe bitcoin.
will it offer new services?
If they have the parking lot space then there may be battery swap stations to quickly swap out EV packs, offer paid upgrades to newer batteries and battery tech every few years.
Janus Electric has been converting prime movers to electric since 2019, listed on the ASX this year, and have demonstrated viability.
* https://primemovermag.com.au/body-electric/
* https://www.januselectric.com.au/news/janus-unveils-first-el...
* https://www.januselectric.com.au/
So far they've barely made a dent in global big truck numbers but they're planning to expand over the next few years .. and there are others in the same business.
> Comparison to earth moving equipment in mines do not apply.
Why not? These fleets have been quasi electric since the 1970s, have serious ongoing research into fully renewable replacement paths, and are responsible for a massive chunk of transport fuel usage given the sheer number of mines in the world and numbers such as iron ore mining in one Australia state alone accounting for > than a billion tonnes moved by trucks alone (including overburden, etc).
These aren't trucks that refuel at gas stations, but they are a considerable sink for fossil fuels.
There will still be fossil based fuel for sale.
There may depending on how soon the world gets over the big misconception that fuels made from plant oils have to be bio fuels - additional bowsers for regular fuel that was created though cracking (in the same petro-refineries) organic oil as the input stock to produce an almost identical fuel to that which is made from fossil based sources - it might cost a little bit more though.
Possibly an area for refuelling liquid based fuel cell powered vehicles.
Advancements in AI might make it possible to have attendant-less stations if you can have automated sales of snacks and other merchandise, and automated payments for chargers and gas, maybe you don't need an attendant on duty 24/7
Vending machines solved the automated snack sales decades ago, except for the restocking.
Wow I didn’t realize adoption was so high in China
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/what-chinas-ev-market-...
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/11/21/the-us-energy-informati...
https://www.iea.org/commentaries/oil-demand-for-fuels-in-chi...
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/CNPC-Chin...
The US? After a decade plus of authoritarian rule and the near outlaw of EVs, we’ll have exactly the same gas stations and cars, all produced right here because the rest of the world doesn’t want them.
We don't "outlaw" cigarettes, for example, but I would call the current taxes on them a "near" outlaw.
We can debate how much EVs should be taxed, but they're using the bloody roads, aren't they?
NGL, I drive a gas-powered Jetta (I wish it was diesel, but oh well) and if I can't get gas, I can't drive. While I'm lucky enough to live where there's some sort of public transit, that's not a thing in a lot of cities. Without the political will or the budget to start adding public transportation RIGHT THE HELL NOW, if ICE goes away, our economy is screwed.
I think that about covers it. All of the above means an EV-hostile environment here.
Oh, and our biggest EV maker is a Neo-Nazi supporter.
Most gas stations today only have one employee at a time so it seems hard to cut that down (and not much incentive tbh).
Electric cars today are still under 10%. Cars last a really long time, so even if there is a huge surge in electric self-driving cars by 2030 there will still be lots of ICE cars on the road in 15 years.
https://www.gridserve.com/electric-vehicle-charging/electric...
Between cities they will be as now a rest stop mainly with fuel. Maybe more charging where you park.
Whether we staff or not depends on if we adopt Japanese culture. In Tokyo they have unattended fast food shops, and somewhat novelty robot servers at some restaurants.
I predict 50% chance of that happening. It may be driven to buy robots and automation becoming cheaper than labour plus mass surveillance making it less appetizing to steal.
As I have a classic car that I intend to keep running, I suspect eventually (e.g. not by 2040), buying fuel for it will be similar to buying pre-mixed fuel for small two-stroke engines, like leafblowers and chainsaws: go to Auto Zone and buy a few gallons of fuel. Auto Zone and friends won't be going anywhere - EVs still need wiper blades, brake pads, and other incidentals.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electric-car-sales-share
(No, don't ask me how that would work. I don't know. I just think that private enterprise could do it quite quickly, if they saw a way to turn a profit doing so.)
Anyway, just funny to now be talking about gas stations in 15 years.
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I have a really hard time understanding the pushback to elctrification.
Very fewe people (like almost none) drive more than 300 miles in a day 8-/
Most people in the plains states where the resistance is highest, live in single family homes where they could easily charge overnight.
Or instead of trucks you could imagine that the left lane on highways could be replaced by some kind of train on rails that your car could dock to. In that train you’d have the same crap you have in current gas stations: mostly toilets and food stuff.
Cars docking to stuff is something that really clicks with me, but you could really go one step further away. You could split cars between the part that runs and the part that carries passengers. The part that carries people could be some kind of capsule akin to a boat container that could be loaded onto something else. When on the highway, this cabin could be put on some giant train that would carry hundreds of these capsules and when you need to get off the highway, your capsule would be loaded on some independent single-capsule vehicle, that would drive you where you need to go.
It’s probably all terrible ideas because that would make everything a lot less resilient to problems in terms of operation, but you said sci fi :-)
Oh and yeah 15 years is way too short to see that kind of changes.
Step one: What is todays delta to 2010? It is a lot, so this is where smart people would start.
So we'll skip that.
Many cars bought today will be around. Many gas stations bought today will be around.
People will be driving further. Do we have to say for the stupid people it won't be electric.
People will be more isolated and not want human contact, digital payments from the pump standard. Food and beverages are as massive part of the profit. So what does that mean?
Automated fueling so your hands don't get dirty will exist. Cars will be able to communicate so they will queue you more efficiently.
There will be electric charging places. They are not "gas stations", you'll get a split. It's interesting to calculate what they would be. Land value vs time to recharge. They can be multistory. This is a whole other thing.