The death of the petrol station
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The rise of electric vehicles could see traditional service stations closing across the planet over the next two decades, and replacing pumps with fast chargers is unlikely to save them.
Justin Rowlatt speaks to one entrepreneur hoping to profit from the rollout of EV chargers in every home and parking space, Erik Fairbairn of Pod Point. Meanwhile Isabelle Haigh, head of national control at the UK's National Grid, explains why she is confident they can meet the electricity demand from all these new vehicles.
Across the Atlantic, another entrepreneur - Sanjiv Patel of National Petroleum - says the writing is clearly on the wall for his chain of 25 gas stations in California - but maybe not for a while yet. But could he turn them into restaurants or use them to hold séances? That's the fate of one petrol station in Leeds that is now an arts centre. We hear from its owner, Jack Simpson.
This is a repeat of an episode first broadcast on 2 June 2021.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: Abandoned gas station along old Route 66 in the California desert; Credit: Lynne Rostochil/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to Business Daily. I'm Justin Roller, and please excuse the appalling pun that's coming your way, |
| 0:07.5 | because today we'll be asking whether the petrol station industry is about to reach the end of the road. |
| 0:15.5 | It's a hundred-year-old industry, right? And I thought nothing was changing. |
| 0:20.2 | Little did I know that nothing was changing |
| 0:22.5 | for 100 years, but last 10 years, it has changed so drastically. And a lot of those are |
| 0:28.9 | existential threat. Why? Because electric charging is going to become much easier for most of us, |
| 0:35.5 | and very quickly. But if you think about just about anywhere that you park a car, |
| 0:40.0 | it's probably next to some electricity. |
| 0:42.0 | So it's a relatively small step just to arrange having the equipment there |
| 0:45.3 | that puts it into the electric vehicle. |
| 0:46.9 | The electric revolution continues here on Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:00.1 | Thank you. from the BBC. Dirty night. |
| 1:01.5 | You have a vacancy? |
| 1:03.2 | Oh, we have 12 vacancies. |
| 1:05.2 | 12 cabins, 12 vacancies. |
| 1:07.3 | You remember the 1960s Hitchcock classic Psycho? |
| 1:11.0 | We're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. |
| 1:19.2 | But do you remember why the shy motel proprietor and serial killer Norman Bates is trapped? |
| 1:26.8 | They moved away the highway. |
| 1:28.9 | It's because the newly built freeways |
| 1:31.4 | bypassed the Bates Motel. |
| 1:34.2 | It wasn't just his mother that was dead. |
... |
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