"Gas" station of yesterday...today...tomorrow

Wth? really? you think people would buy a car that would require them to sit at a "gas" station for half an hour?? I agree that charging is the way of the future, but it's going to be at a destination not along your route. A better business model is opening charging kiosks at shopping centers.
another option is rolling out in Israel as we speak, where you simply drive in and swap a battery pack.
Israel to Get Electric Car Battery Swap Stations  - Technology Review

 

A majority of charging will be done at home, overnight. I can see specialized gas stations as described here popping up along major highways - If I can get 300 miles on a single charge, I'll have no problem pulling into a station for half an hour to recharge, relax, and eat some something. But that won't be at a gas station like we have everywhere today. It'll be more like the rest stops they have on toll highways - gas station, a couple of fast food restaurants, etc.

 

I'll wager that companies like whole foods and starbucks will lead the "charge". The startup investment is high enough that there will have to be a marketing benefit that actually outweighs the expense. "recharge your car while you recharge yourself" dovetails nicely with the corporate ethos of a company like whole foods or Starbucks.
The payback is in the upsell of products not the $5 charging fee. Each charging station can only charge TWO cars an hour! How do you scale a business around that?

Think of how daunting a 300mi trip is in a leaf. You have to plan your route to take you past a charging station near 100mi, and when you get there it has to be functioning, and vacant! if you're third in line for the charger, you're spending an hour planning the impending sale of your nissan Leaf. What's funny is, if you recharge at 80 mi, then 90 mi...you have to recharge AGAIN to actually reach 300mi. This would be frustrating, being within "charging time" of your destination and having to stop...20 mins from destination but you need a half hour charge to get there.

 

In the future, charging might only take a few minutes instead of hours. In that case, OP has a point.

 

Cause they just bulk flush out your discharged capacitance gel with fresh gel (your old gel gets slow-recharged inside station for next customer use).

Like they said in Back to the Future... "You can trust your car- to the system with the star"

 

Some folks are already thinking about charging on the go: :cheer2:



More: Stanford researchers design magnetic highway for wireless EV charging

 

CNG stations are the next thing. :thumb:

 

For the 21st Century Automotive Challenge a Leaf (~100 mile range) was driven to Penn State from South Jersey. His 1st stop was the King of Prussia Mall for free charging. His 2nd stop was Hershey Park where he was able to charge for free before the park was open. He almost made it to Penn State's Morningstar house for recharging but ran out of juice 1.5 miles away.

So, yes, chargers need to be along your route.

 

You need to remember places like 7-11 came out of the blue laws here. Stores couldn't operate on Sundays, but gas stations could. Some people had the great idea of selling things people needed to buy on sundays at the gas station that the state allowed to be open Now you can even get your favorite fish jerky and big gulp in a 7-11 in japan But you don't need to go in to buy beers, they sell those in vending machines over there.

The loss of mechanics came about with many of the changes in cars. They became more reliable and harder to fix. You couldn't afford a well trained mechanic at the gas station anymore.

We have gas stations out on the state highways that have restaurants and other things. I can definitely see some 7-11s adding chargers, but most stations won't.

I think you are describing convince stores and coffee shops. They are definitely places to get chargers.

IIRC whole foods was the first public charger here. Its there headquarters store where they try things out first, but I'm sure they will roll it out everywhere. Walgreen's seems like the biggest roll out now, but I don't know if people charge there. We have chargers at the parks and libraries now.