I've never owned a car in a city as dense as SF or New York so maybe it's different in places like that, but this strikes me as yet another example of the "Uber-For-X" SV startup that doesn't solve any real problem. Stopping by the gas station once a week on my way home is simply not a big enough annoyance for me to subscribe to yet another service.
I'm also skeptical of the long-term prospects of this business model based on the rise of transportation-as-a-service and the inevitable demise of gasoline in favor of EV's. Both of those factors will be especially pronounced in the Bay Area, where this startup hopes to gain a foothold.
I guess I'm one of those weird outliers who has a use case but still won't use the service. My wife works nights and rarely remembers to fuel our vehicle. I commute via Uber or bus so I never have it either. $15/mo is still too much for the service. Sooner or later my wife will run out of gas and then she'll do a better job of remembering to fuel the truck.
The density of gas stations is high enough that it works just fine to take a little detour to one of the several gas stations on the way between anywhere and anywhere when the dashboard light comes on.
This might be more useful if gas stations begin to fold because of electric cars.
I had never heard of this kind of service until a couple of weeks ago when I saw a Booster fuels truck. The advertised prices on the truck were a good 20 cents/gallon lower than the Chevron across the street from where it was parked.
OTOH, I don't know if they use top tier fuels with whatever detergent packages or if it's Arco-quality gas, or what.
There's no such thing as top tier fuel. Gas is bought off the spot market, just like orange juice. The quality of Arco's product on any given day could be identical to that of Chevron/Shell/more-expensive-name-brand.
You probably don't want to use fuel that's been sitting in a jerry can for years, but is that concern really applicable to gas stations? Surely even the worst of them would turn over their entire stock in a matter of days, so you'll never be buying particularly old fuel.
Having seen but never used Arco--is there a significant difference in gasoline quality? I had always been under the impression that it was largely a commodity product with the various additives largely being used to help differentiate from a branding standpoint and not actually doing much.
In many major areas there are only one or two refineries anyways - it all comes from the same place and is rebranded. Sometimes with a tiny percentage of some special fuel additive poured in when they fill the gas station's tanks. For example in western WA there is Cherry Point or Anacortes. ARCO gas comes from the same place that refines petrol and diesel for 5 other major brands in the area.
There is basically no difference in gasoline brands. They all buy from the same area wholesalers. Some may vary on ethanol percentage and other additives but generally it's nothing significant.
Back when I lived in WA, Arco was the "cheap gas" because they used the winter 10% ethanol blend (== less power and less fuel economy) year-round, whereas 'good' gas stations switched to ethanol-free in the summer.
Now that I live in CA, everyone does 10% ethanol anyway. More and more it's hard to find non-ethanol gas anywhere.
Supposedly the top tier brands use 'better' detergents, but I'd say the differences in brands are smaller than ever.
I take advantage of fuel stops to check the oil, coolant levels, etc. and generally eyeball stuff under the hood, like the drive belts for alternator, AC, etc. I glance at the tires too. It's a nice way to do something productive while the pump is running and saves me from having to do that separately at home.
$15/month on top of gas fees? Not interested. Without the monthly fee though, very interested. There's almost always a wait for gas stations when I go, so this service makes sense.
Furthermore, Uber solved a problem in a market with inefficiencies and use regulation arbitrage to do it. This is just an on demand service betting on the fact that people are lazy enough to not want to put gas into their car. IMO, there are bigger (or actual) problems to solve.
Honestly, I wonder why they didn't launch in Chicago or Boston in the winter when weather would make people not want to bother going outside.
Profiting from legal loopholes[1], esp where two things accomplish the same goal, but one of them is more vigorously enforced/regulated than the other.
In this case, both taxis and limo/livery services[2] provide the same good -- "rides to somewhere" -- but taxis are more regulated in terms of rate, driver training, equipment, and how many can be active (medallion limits). Limo/livery services (or something passed off as one), by contrast, are less regulated, and what regulations they have aren't as closely monitored because (until recently) no one cared.
The analogy to arbitrage is that it's a case of same good, but different prices on different "markets". (Whether you market it as a "livery" or "taxi" service.)
Side note: IMHO, such arbitrage can't fully account for the success of Uber/Lyft, which have actually obeyed the major "no street hails" rule. They provided a better service (reliability and seeing when your ride is coming), squeezed out enormous efficiencies from harnessing IT, and solved major public goods/incentive problems that the regs were failing at -- how to fairly allocate the undesirable fares and get people to provide feedback on bad drivers.
[2] The legal difference between the two is that a taxi can do street hails -- on-the-spot arrangements found by line of sight -- while limo/livery services must be pre-arranged through some booking service that logs the specific driver/vehicle assigned to chauffeur a specific person + guests to another place.
I think [2] is the regulation arbitrage/loophole. In many places those cars must still be licensed & regulated. It's more than just the driver/ booking service keeping a log.
Regulatory arbitrage includes differentials in enforcement, which I think is true here: even when a limo needs a license, you can operate a lot longer before anyone bothers to do anything.
> I'm also skeptical of the long-term prospects of this business model based on the rise of transportation-as-a-service and the inevitable demise of gasoline in favor of EV's. Both of those factors will be especially pronounced in the Bay Area, where this startup hopes to gain a foothold.
IIRC they're also pushing for traction in Tennessee where one of the founders is originally from, so they've split their eggs into at least 2 markedly different baskets.
I can stop for gas, go in for a cup of Starbucks and be back to my car that now has a full tank in less than 5 minutes.
Would I pay $15 a month for this even though my normal routine doesn't suck? Maybe. But what about the actual gas cost? That's more important than the $15 subscription fee if the spread is large enough and I'm guessing it is since they have to pay for the drivers, carry some kind of insurance I presume, and whatever other costs are involved.
This comment says nothing for the people not willing to go watch random youtube videos to hear your point. Could you have not articulated it with a bit of text and used the link to further clarify what you mean?
I have a decent commute plus after work commitments and I fill my 70 litre tank once a week. It still isn't that much of a pain point, but if I were busier and less interested in cars I could see the appeal.
I can see this being a great service. Yeah maybe bike packed, dense SF is not going to be their ideal market, but places like LA where there are more cars than sands on a beach can definitely benefit from a service like this. An average commuter in LA has to fill up their tank every one or two weeks. Not having to think about gas ever is a game changer. I also never really enjoyed going to greasy gas stations.
If you're filling up once every 1 or 2 weeks, that's not much thinking at all, so it doesn't seem like a game changer to me. Not all gas stations are greasy either--many are clean and shiny. Sure, you'd have to pay 20-40 cents more per gallon, but it's still a better deal than Yoshi.
Not having to think about gas ever is a game changer.
Then maybe the solution is not yet-another-subscription, but an electric car. I mean if it's that big a deal to you, such that you would describe it as "a game changer".
Personally, meh, it's an additional five minutes every couple of weeks. Since the only gas vehicle I regularly drive is a motorcycle, I don't even have to "exit" my vehicle, just zip the card through the reader, shove nozzle in tank.
Additionally, what about liability? Even though the chances of a static electricity induced explosion from metal to metal contact during refueling is infinitesimal, it exposes all the other cars in the area to that risk unwittingly.
I think you underestimate how valuable the vast majority of the world considers their money. All this use of "My". Sorry to be blunt but you are irrelevant. Spend some time outside of the bubble, St. Louis for example. People here ain't gonna pay $15 to reclaim 40 minutes a month. This strikes me like the gig economy spend a $1 to get $0.90 strategy. There are huge costs for physical presence businesses that can only solved by charging a premium...or spending VC money. So you are fated to be a lifestyle brand or brace for the pump and dump.
You're not wrong, but it's a premium service for a self-selecting market. Given SV/SF's narrow geographical spread and high disposable income, I can see it working there, while it would probably falter in most of Middle America.
Or, this is where they figure out how to run a business like this right, and then they (maybe) use that knowledge to launch something in the outside world.
> People here ain't gonna pay $15 to reclaim 40 minutes a month
are there no hand car washes in st. louis? a full service carwash saves about 40 minutes of labor that you can use to catch up on work or other activities, and costs about 15 bucks.
and how about a cheap lunch at the diner for 1 or 2? wouldn't that be about $15? and saves you about 40 minutes of prep, cook, and clean?
$15 in a taxi cab or uber would save you about 40 minutes of walking.
No. My point is people value their money over their time despite their time being more valuable than the money they save. Remember people drive 10 minutes out of the way to save $0.05/gallon on gas. People waste time and money to save money! My mom does this. There is no amount of analysis that will make her stop. People just don't think.
And yeah people do part with $15 on known entities in brainless ways. This is a new behavior though. This gas refueling scheme ain't gonna make sense to the vast majority of people, hence once again cue the Dana Carvey George Bush skit...."Not gonna do it."
>>Paying a startup $15/mo to reclaim even 40 mins a month of my personal time is a no brainer.
Just asking, how do you wish to spend those 40 mins you are likely to save per month? Which you will likely get in installments of 20 minutes per 15 days(avg 1 minute/day).
I'd spend them doing anything aside from random boring necessary chores. If I could pay someone to actually handle all the boring mundane stuff for me just so I could have an extra hour a day to play video games, I'd do it. I have more money than time right now and you can't buy time ever, especially not while you're younger. I don't want to wait until retirement to have time to do whatever I want all the time. There is no promise of tomorrow. I'm not sure that I'll be alive in a week, much less in 40 years. I'm not willing to spend more time than I need to planning for tomorrow when I can enjoy my life now, and maximizing that is worth what is a relatively small sum for me right now to not have to think about small chores from which I derive no pleasure.
>>If I could pay someone to actually handle all the boring mundane stuff for me just so I could have an extra hour a day to play video games, I'd do it.
Sure, makes perfect sense for anything that goes beyond >1hr a day.
But lets do the math here. Lets say some one charge $15-$20 per hour do your chores(Going by the minimum+ wage). For two hours you are now looking at $450-$600/month expenses for that. If you can afford that and are willing to spend that kind of money, then it makes perfect sense.
To be fair, this is probably a trade-off people in SF are already making. I know I am in NYC - if I was willing to spend an extra hour/day commuting (and that's only weekday, of course), I could easily save $500/month or more on rent.
Lets do some more math. Lets fix that figure to something like $600/month. That is $7200/year. Over a decade that is $72,000.
Say if you started when you were 21. By the time you are 46- just the savings would be $180,000. Progressively invest that in a good fund. That could mean a home right there or a 401k equivalent, Just on your travel expenses. To me, that's a decent nest egg.
I don't believe the parent poster was serious when he said he'd like to spend it all because he refused to believe he would be alive in a few decades. In most cases the person would generally be alive, live long, and be poor in old age. What follows next is blaming government, youngsters, immigrants, bankers and what not for your predicament while very clearly it was your choices at work all the time.
Now don't tell me spending extra time on commute is hard. Obviously it is, you don't get to an extra 401k by 46 by walking in the park.
25 years * 5 days a week * 48 working weeks a year = 6000 hours spent commuting.
Assuming 8 hours sleeping and 8 hours working, those 6k translate to 375 days worth of waking hours and 750 days worth of non-work hours.
Alternatively, you could devote those 6K hours entirely to working and get the equivalent of 3.125 extra working years over that time (6000 / (48 * 8 * 5) = 3.125), which should exceed a nominal $180K pretty easily.
For me it would be not needing to experience the little bit of stress I see when the fuel indicator is edging down to 1/4 tank and wondering when I'm going to squeeze in a trip to the gas station when I'd really rather be somewhere else.
Does it really stress you out that much? The only time low fuel stresses me out is on I-80 when I know for a fact the closest station is a hundred miles away.
I also don't get these 40 minute estimates. On one of my little motorbikes I used to fuel up and back on the road in no more than 3 minutes, and my truck doesn't take more than 5-8.
If I stay on my optimized routes I can get from work to home pretty quickly. But if I stray to hit a gas station, I never know when I'm going to end up stuck in a micro-jam that sucks back 10 minutes or more. Each way. And it feels like an hour.
First world problems for sure, but I'd happily pay to be rid of that inconvenience. And while they're at it, I'd pay an extra $10 for them to do a quick wash of my car once a month.
Well in that case make sure you have your car parked exactly where they want it parked to be refilled. Else you have to now experience additional stress of getting the car to that place and that falling levels of fuel in your tank at the same time.
Its not like they track your car through GPS and show up at the exact place where you are empty.
"Rather than delivering “on-demand,” Yoshi users schedule refueling one time, typically at a place of work where they park for hours during the day without needing their vehicle."
and
"This “set it and forget it” approach allows Yoshi to optimize their delivery routes, explains CEO and co-founder Nick Alexander."
I don't think it works like Uber, where you can order for something and get it on demand. You need to tell them where you will be a few days in advance for them to chart our their route to finally reach you. You need to be aware/anticipate that you will run out of gas a few days before and then schedule the refill and keep your car unused for a good few hours.
Firstly that is more like 20 minutes. Secondly, I don't know of any one with a schedule so packed that they can't spare 20 minutes once two weeks.
The only two situations I can imagine is if you are poor and work more than one job and have to often rush. Which in case it doesn't make sense to pay more for something like this. Or if your time is worth in thousands of dollars an hour/minutes. Which in case you anyway have drivers and servants to do that for you.
Or may be if you are meeting your kids once in a few days/weeks and you just can't wait anymore to meet them not even a few minutes.
I'm assuming you don't have kids. Kids slurp up every extra moment. And you as a parent are fine with that. Except in the morning when you need to get to work and don't have gas in your car. Then, I'd wager this service is worth even more than $15. In fact, I think these guys should send their email marketing out at 9:45 when harried parents have arrived at work and are still painfully replaying their mornings, trying to come up with a solution to skipping the refueling line.
I'd imagine this would work if this is a daily scene. You wake up every single day and learn you are out of gas. I don't think it happens to anybody everyday.
Either way the service requires you let them know a few days in advance and keep your vehicle unused for a good few hours. If you need to plan out things like filling gas a few days in advance, I'm very sure you wouldn't end up surprised not having gas in the car in the first place.
>In seriousness, time is the most precious resource we have. Still, I wonder if it's possible to overestimate its value.
My own 2 cents on this is not that the value of the time becomes over estimated but that people fail to extract the value of the time they "saved" by paying to have a service provided. I pay somebody to mow my lawn every week, if I spend that time hacking on a side project or being with my family then I can honestly say my time is indeed valuable and was well spent; but if I spend that time just screwing around on HN or Reddit, then I would say I wasn't honest about the value of my time and accept the fact that I paid for a service just because I'm lazy.
Guys, guy, can you look beyond what you see today? Filling gas is merely an MVP. The goal at the minimum is to manage every car post purchase
Gas is merely a way to start the relationship between the car and the owner.
car servicing is a massive low hanging fruit after the gas one. Presently my car is over a month due for servicing, I'll happily pay 15% more to get someone come do it where I parked it.
My suggestion to the founders would be to test switching between "refuelling" tagline and "serving where you are" and see which converts better. I believe too many people who need the second will dismiss you on seeing the mundane first.
I've never used Yoshi...but I have a gas station at the end of my block and I talk to the owner every so often so I'd feel weird cutting him off like that. xD
Agreed. The great thing is, they don't even need to be the mechanic, they just need to have the relationship. I work 6 am to 6 pm most days, so whenever my car needs even an oil change it's a huge hassle to coordinate (or means giving up what feels like half a day off).
I'd totally pay a bit extra to have someone pickup my car from the work parking lot, take it for an oil change and whatever other squawks I've identified, etc, and return it.
Of course, the downside is that most cars don't get oil changes very often (compared to fueling), so they would need a LOT of customers to make this work.
How do they open your gas tank? I think the most interesting part is their partnership with Firestone... On demand car servicing while you are at work seems like it solves a bigger problem than filling up with gas.
I wonder if there has been a roadblock to that that needs solving. Because replacing auto glass while you're at work has been a thing for a very long time.
Quick-service car maintenance is profitable because they can be efficient.
They have a guy at Jiffy Lube "below deck" so the car doesn't need to be jacked, lifted, or crawled under to start draining the oil.
The second you lose "home court" you lose any procedural efficiency your business has.
I have enough trouble crawling under my car in my own driveway, I can't imagine having to work on a car in a corporate parking lot, surrounded by others.
It's also messy, so I'd imagine it's pretty hard to do anything while making sure the cars parked half a foot away, are clean and untouched. Glass replacement at least is relatively self contained.
Right, most of the time you would meet the technician and unlock your car or hand them the keys until they are done. They don't just walk up to a locked car and replace the glass. I am sure on some care with out and alarm sensor on the windshield they would almost be able to replace the glass without the keys. I am sure that's a rarity though.
I have a friend that works in the industry. I'll bring this up to him and see what he says.
That is honestly my biggest question, they gloss over it in the article but surely accessing a gas tank without the keys to the vehicle just means they have found a way to break into the fuel cap reliably for different models?
The way it was written in the article suggests that, but perhaps they are just giving users some proprietary hardware to put on the car.
Unfortunately this sounds like another startup that won't exist 2 years from now. They are solving a problem that isn't really a problem. And super long term when everyone has an electric car this won't even be an issue. The potential client base seems really small. They would have to pivot like crazy.
I was wondering about that as well since TC makes no mention on what the fall out was from that. There was a joke going around about the "Farm Service startup, big trucks full of fertilizer and diesel fuel going from farm to farm to top up their supplies. What could possibly go wrong with that?" But more seriously, there are three things here that I can see from a public policy/safety viewpoint that have to be controlled for; Spillage (fuel is a hazardous substance), fire (you really need to control open flames when you're refilling, so you need to control the location), and transport (are your supply vehicles adequately protected in the event of a crash, are they marked so that first responders can understand the risks).
It isn't something we do a lot of but sometimes when we are on our way to camping our motor home is running its fridge on propane. There is an open flame somewhere that is feeding the heat pump. We turn it off when we go into a gas station but if someone parked next to us, they would probably not know that it wouldn't be a good place to have their car refueled. Hard to know what is going on exactly in your environment.
I'm adding gasoline delivery to the list of startups which should absolutely not "move fast and break things" or "beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission"
> "We haven't talked to them. I don't know about that. It’s news to me"
> "You can never ask for permission because no one will give it"
> I'm adding gasoline delivery to the list of startups which should absolutely not "move fast and break things" or "beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission"
The status quo is that every half-drunk, chain smoking, Joe Regular is allowed to fuel up his tank unsupervised. This is unlikely to be any more dangerous.
> "You can never ask for permission because no one will give it"
We take this seriously. We comply with all regulations (local/state/federal). The Bloomberg article was a little... off... on a number of things. And we actually go above what is required by law on a number of things relating to safety. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073856
That "We haven't talked to them" line is pretty ridiculous. Of course you haven't talked to them, you know they would flip out about transporting extremely flammable liquid around the city (I'm guessing with questionable methods) and fuelling cars just wherever.
Their drivers need a commercial drivers license with a hazmat endorsement.[1] There's also a TSA background check before you get to drive a gasoline tanker, even a small one.
Why doesn't the fueling vehicle have a full-sized hazmat diamond, like every other fuel truck in the US?
That was a big question for me too. They story says they engineered proprietary delivery trucks and based on the photo they are emblazoned with Yoshi branding. A true contractor would have to own the truck and likely would have his/her own business branding on the truck and would be free to work for any similar service.
Having started driving in the age of 99¢/gal gas, I am highly sensitive to price differences between stations, and I choose between 3 stations that are always within 5¢ of each other. I am typically not so price sensitive (with other purchases), but with gas I make minor schedule/route deviations to save <75¢ on a fill up. Curiously, because this startup charges a monthly convenience/subscription charge—instead of an incremental fuel charge—I was actually willing to consider it. But when I did the math, it didn't come close to making sense.
Having a service like this would save me some amount of time, I suspect that if I significantly relaxed my fueling station choices, it would cost me much less than $15/mo, and the inconvenience of filling up would be diminished nearly to zero. There are stations very near where I live, so route deviations would disappear, and the lines are never very long.
Basically, I think part of the allure of a service like Yoshi is it removes the decision paralysis that results from having many different gas stations available, and having to choose when/where to fill up. Ultimately not a game-changer for me, but I appreciate that it makes me consider alternatives!
The decision paralysis isn't about the gas stations I frequent, which are all similarly-priced. It's more about the other gas stations that I could use, which are very convenient but sometimes much more expensive ($5/fill up) than the ones I normally go to.
Nope—all three stations are on the same road, in a 1 mile stretch that I travel frequently. Note the "minor" deviations that I indicate making. I don't ever drive out of my way to get gas; it's always a timing issue.
My point was that I am very sensitive to few-cent differences in the price of gas, because when I first started driving, each penny difference was a 1% difference in the gas price. Now that gas is roughly triple that (here in sunny CA, at any rate), each penny is 1/3 of 1% difference. So in my case, I'm more (psychologically, if irrationally) open to paying a "convenience fee" than a surcharged gas price.
When I was little you pulled into the gas station, and a teenage kid sprinted from the garage, pumped your gas, washed your windows, and checked your oil, took your payment, and you never had to leave your seat.
The past is the present in the great state of New Jersey. Though it's usually a gentleman of indeterminate Asian origin instead of a pimply faced teen. I love not pumping my own gas.
In a few states it's due to regulation rather than good service. If customers are setting your gas station on fire too often, maybe having a staff member do the pumping makes sense.
Good question. We created a device (that we call a "Fuel Vault") that we can install in your car's "gas flap." We'll require that you leave your car's gas flap popped open for your first fill-up so that we can install it. After that, we'll be able to get into your gas flap anytime. It doesn't require any permanent modifications to your car, and can be removed anytime.
Locking gas doors are pretty pointless these days, unless you're worried about someone giving you the sugar-in-the-gas-tank treatment. All cars made for the last several years have anti-siphoning measures built into the line to the gas tank.
Interesting, thanks. My understanding was wrong -- I thought the automakers were using actual metal mesh screens to block the passage of siphons. Apparently (according to the GasTapper video I just watched on YouTube) you can just ram the smaller hose right through the obstruction.
And thank you. I wasn't even aware gas tanks had security measures, let alone gadgets to circumvent it until your comment piqued my interest. Pretty interesting.
Crowbar. It's super high tech. Seriously though, I'd like to know too. everything I can think of is either expensive/time consuming (syncing generic new wireless keys, copying physical keys), potentially damaging to the car, or require the provisioning of something that you leave plugged into the obd-2 port. That latter one you could do with 15$ in parts and a cavalier disregard for the cars security, so that could be it?
I'm curious about trademark issues WRT the company having the same name as a well-known Nintendo character. IANAL, and I know that the context in which a name is used affects whether or not the name is protected, but I've got to think that if (for example) I started an extremely not-video-game-related company named "Pikachu" that I would likely get some heat for it, even if it was just a toothless nastygram from a lawyer asking me nicely to not use the name.
Is the name "Yoshi" not as protected for whatever reason (more common name/word/etc.), or is this just a case where the company is in a different industry therefore Nintendo's protection doesn't apply, or is this a risky thing to do? I'm just genuinely curious about how this stuff works, I have no stake in any of it. It's a great name and I wish the startup the best.
I've had a couple of fill-ups with Yoshi since signing up a few weeks ago. It's been great for my Mountain View commutes so I don't have to lose more time with my family because I had to stop for gas on the way home.
I've seen Booster Fuels trucks around at a company I used to work at. To me this makes the most sense as a perk offered by a company not in a major city, that has huge parking lots of cars. I used to commute to Santa Clara 3x a week from SF and needed to re-fuel every week. If the company offered the service as a perk with me just paying for gas, that would be pretty convenient no-brainer.
Yes, we actually do do this, and we're now a corporate perk at several companies in the areas we service. We also let people sign-up and start getting serviced at lots where we aren't sponsored by a company too.
What about all of the things that are just at the company HQ? My big software company has a clinic, gym, cafe, etc. onsite, but we have remote employees. Same thing, right?
I'm constantly sore that as a remote employee I don't get cupcakes and free beer and all the other shit that's provided at HQ. But then again, I rarely ever have to take a day off when I have errands to run.
Whenever I've mentioned all the health costs associated with offspring (which I don't have!), the HR dude has always referred me to the Parable of the Vineyard Workers. I'm not sure it really applies, but I get the feeling we're not supposed to complain about that sort of thing...
You can take the larger view that your co-workers' children will one day pay your Social Security. That seems like a huge net plus for you.
But seriously, the remarkable part of your comment is your HR department. If someone in HR hears a valid complaint about fairness and then tells you to read the "don't be a whiny bitch" parable in the Bible, you should be able to get away with murder at that company. Why not clock-in a 4:50PM and call it a day after 10 minutes per said parable.
Why did you choose to go after the customer market directly? This seems like the kind of thing that could work being sold directly to companies with large workforces in office parks. That way you bill the compnay for the service, and the individual only for the cost of the fuel. Yoshi could then save money by sending a single fuel truck to a location to fuel multiple cars in one trip.
The company then gets the benefit of a unique(ish) perk to offer to employees.
Full disclosure: I don't drive that often, bike to work and probably fill my gas tank once a month or less
I actually think this is a pretty good idea, especially if you can also handle the annoying, piddly maintenance stuff, like tire pressure, fluids and perhaps oil changes for me.
Yep, it's not mentioned in the article but we actually air-up your tires and service them (if needed) as well through a recent partnership we made with Firestone. Depending on the market, we're also offering oil changes and other maintenance things too. Working on expanding these wider.
So you're taking into account proper inflation(it differs, even per axle) for each make/model? How do you plan on changing things like oil when cars hoods are locked? Jacking up cars with alarms?
We let you set the PSI that you want your tires set to. We'll show your the factory default, but you can adjust it to whatever you'd like.
Don't want to share too much about oil changes yet, as we're still trying to figure out a lot of the details ourselves and are only testing this in a very limit scope right now.
We offer both regular (87 octane) and premium (91/93, depending on the market) grade. Not ethanol free but it is high quality ("top tier" in most markets).
Sounds like a niche that might work for you guys. I'm guessing the people who need that kind of fuel intersects nicely with "people who don't have time to fill up" and are willing to spend some extra money for convenience.
Usually additives are added to premium which wouldn't be in mid-grade (not a huge cost difference, though). Usually this stuff gets mixed at the rack (along with ethanol, etc.), although there are older gas stations and cheaper stations which mix high and low on-site at the pump for medium.
Ah, it's apparently 90% have two tanks. The remaining 10% have 3 and have pre-mixed, because they had leftover tank from when they did leaded gas, and by doing this they don't need to upgrade the pumps. So it's probably old/cheap/un-upgraded stations which have 3 tanks.
In theory a drain plug could be designed that will allow draining the old oil and then filling the new from under the car. Changing the filter might be trickier, since not all filters are accessible from the underside (but most are).
You're wanting a full service mechanic to come out to you. That's not what this service is (nor do I think you can commercially change oil and other fluids in random parking lots).
> Here you are, on HN, saying why things aren't possible. Yet these guys are out there making them work. Food for thought
Just because someone has an idea doesn't make it a sound idea, nor legal. Changing vehicle fluids commercially in random parking lots is not allowed in a lot of places, for fairly obvious reasons.
And frankly, the company this thread is about even acknowledges the legality of what they are doing may be shaky. Driving around town with hundreds of gallons of fuel is likely to make certain regulatory bodies unhappy.
In another article, the San Franciso fire department stated fuel delivery services were not permitted[1].
I was skeptical about the business when it was on-demand gas delivery (when David told me about it), but I really like this pivot. The friction of filling gas will vary greatly from person to person (and many will have already figured out how to minimize that friction in their weekly routines), but services and check up are painful for nearly everyone -- especially since they're infrequent and relatively unfamiliar tasks. Kudos.
I can't imagine a $15/month consumer offering working. But I could see a company-sponsored offering to fill up a parking lot full of cars with cheap gas to the employee.
When I saw the first picture of the article, I thought the premise was that you could get your gas filled while you were actually driving like a plane refueling in the sky. That's not what it is though.
They have had this service in yachting for years.[0] The best is being close enough for a fuel truck to reach.[1]When I was in St. Thomas Carlos Slim's crew were fueling his yacht Helo[2] with the only line that would reach far enough down the dock which only pumps about 25 gallons a minute. The engineers had to hold watch day and night until it was filled.
Yes, to their customers. With Getaround you need to go to a gas station and refill the car to a specified level (typically full) every trip, no exceptions ever, even if you only used it to move your groceries 10 blocks. OTOH, the hourly price is lower.
With Zipcar you must return the tank at least 1/3rd (maybe it's 1/4th) full, but there is a gas card in the visor. They're apparently using some kind of fleet management system, because the gas pump itself prompts you for the odometer value and your "driver ID" number (on your Zipcard) before fueling. Same interface at competing gas stations, so it's apparently a standard thing.
It's a bit unpleasant because you can't cut the reservation time too close to your needs - need to allow extra time to go to a gas station and back.
Totally, I'm always stuck with the Enterprise Car Share car with less than 1/4 tank and get stuck with an extra $25 'refueling fee' when I don't take it back (I have to pay for the extra 15 min of rental time PLUS stop by a gas station--which is super annoying). This would be a killer use case for their fleet to manage.
I just emailed customer support at Enterprise Car Share and shared them your TC article. They have a lot of cars in SF and they could probably benefit from you guys--especially since their cars are sitting in lots all day. It could be a great lead source!
I'm probably the only one here who actually enjoys taking a break from my commute to pull over, refuel and get a drink/snack while I'm at it. But I can totally see where this would work (depending on how much one drives). I can see my wife use this to not have to deal with getting gas, especially when she drives our two babies around. I wonder if they offer both regular and premium gas as my car needs premium (would be good info to have in their website before I'm forced to download the app). Also, reading on their website they claim it's better for the environment to not have to drive to a gas station. Again, this depends on the location, but where I live (SF Bay Area) there's a gas station on almost every main intersection of roads so it's hard to believe that that would take me more gas than for them to have it drive out to my office.
You are not. When I drive down to West Virginia from NY, getting fresh air on foot is exciting because I feel safe walking around gas station more than driving on the road. But that's outside of city. City gas station is competitive enough I feel stressed about going into one.
For all of the ridiculous "fire professionals" because safety hrmmm huuhh drep mentioned in the articles, let me just point out that this(1) is a thing that already drives fairly recklessly through the neighborhoods in my town delivering fuel and doesn't seem to do half of the things these car-fuel delivery companies do to deal with spillage issues.
I was thinking the same thing. You see a lot of construction vehicles driving around with large tanks in the back of the pick-up. I wonder what certification they require?
That said, gasoline is a LOT more flammable than fuel oil or diesel. The later two burn, while gasoline vapors almost explode when ignited.
That's kind of similar to how airplanes are getting filled up at KPAO. Fueling truck comes by, doesn't see a white mark on the right tire - refuels to the max. In the end it saves a lot of time, because you don't have to worry about filling it up.
I like it. Gas stations can be unsafe places in some cities. Not to mention the pain of having to get out of your car in -20 degree weather in other places. Also air sensors are frequently inaccurate at many gas station air pumps.
It's funny seeing all these people vehemently defend their $15/mo. In the bay area, where this launched, that's like what, two beers at a bar?
I don't get the money argument at all. Negotiate yourself a $15/month raise, if you feel that bad about it. And yes, no shit, in some places in the world (like back home for me) this won't make sense -- so what?
The one thing I'd want to have is some kind of ceiling on the gas price. I checked this morning and the prices seemed quite good, but what guarantee do I have that they won't randomly jack up the price when I'm not looking?
If you aren't marking up the gas then the operating costs and profits must (eventually) come from the $15/mo, correct?
So does this work similarly to the gym business model (i.e. over-subscribe the service with the assumption that some portion of subscribers won't use it very often and will subsidize the heavy users)? The requirement to plan ahead instead of offering on-demand delivery seems like it might encourage that dynamic ("Crap, I'm nearly out of gas and forgot to put in my Yoshi order. I'll just fill it myself this time").
I'm curious about the steps taken actually. Are you approved in the State of California by the state board as a fuel delivery/transportation company? Do you intend to go to court if not?
We don't have an API yet that something like automatic can report your gas gauge to. Though it's something we're thinking about.
However, the way that the service works now, it wouldn't save you anything in the average case. We come by and fill your car up regularly (usually once or twice a week) without you having to "order" when you need it. Unless you take a long trip and need a fill-up off-cycle, you shouldn't need to ever use the app to call for gas once you are setup.
Yes we do. Our median member is on a weekly frequency, but we have people getting filled-up more and less frequently than that depending on their need.
The reason this seems crazy to me is that a fixed appointment time is way harder for me to meet (even though I keep a calendar). I'd rather just schedule my own time.
If I could give the service a key to the car (and trust them to figure out when I needed service), it might be worth doing, but I am not a dedicated car commuter.
I'm curious about how the customer knows they are getting the grade of gasoline that they paid for. The stuff that comes directly out of the pump is periodically measured by regulators. What assurance does the Yoshi customer get that they are not getting 87 after paying for 91?
How do you know the stuff at the gas station is actually 91 and not 87, how do you know the regulators do their jobs properly and aren't bought out by Big Oil?
The answer to all questions is that random private individuals or groups do the tests. If it's a big enough concern among their customers, some of them will do it. Some customers at regular gas stations already do these tests on their own because not all gas stations are the same. (A few people even make their own gas.)
Service stations intending to defraud might be more likely to adjust their volume measurements than to mix their octanes? Either way, I don't see why one should trust the local station more than this service.
For people in a constant time crunch, this service is quite appealing. You always seem to wind up short on gas at the worst possible time, or notice that your tire is low on air when you are not able to make a stop.
As the parent of a two-year-old, I can definitely see a need for this. It would be a great gift for new parents, for example. The price seems a tad high for me personally, but as can be seen by them already being profitable, clearly many people are willing to pay for it.
Not sure I want a gas truck driving into parking structures in the middle of Manhattan to top-up private cars. That seems like a serious health and safety hazard. And there really is no excuse for Manhattan needing to have numerous gas stations: the island is small and accessible to vehicles from other boroughs. Plus Manhattan has more than a gas station per square mile, which is more than most suburbs I know of.
How are you supposed to do gasoline delivery without keys to the vehicle, when the driver is absent, if nearly every car sold these days has a fuel cap door that can only be opened from a button inside the vehicle?
> You could imagine what could happen if a fueling truck went into a parking garage under a commercial or residential building, it would not be a good outcome.[0]
What are the carbon costs of this service? Is less carbon burned into the atmosphere because of this service? Or, more?
Is there a public analysis that we can view?
Edit: Really? Buried to the bottom for environmental concern questions? Is this another case of YCombinator being unable to adequately respond to critical questions?
Probably close to neutral; maybe better, if their truck is diesel, and it keeps people from driving out of their way to find the cheapest gas in stop and go traffic.
It's a pretty insignificant concern, though, relative to the positives (time savings, convenience) and negatives (safety).
I don't see how hauling the gasoline to vehicles could possibly be better unless the tanker was acting as a mobile, stationary (until the tank is emptied) station and came directly from the same place current tankers do (no intermediate storage). In such a scenario, it's possible that there might be a slight improvement. However, from what I can tell this service seems to go wherever someone has parked; meaning lots of traveling and one-off trips for the tankers.
>It's a pretty insignificant concern, though, relative to the positives (time savings, convenience) and negatives (safety).
It seems pretty convenient that the only beneficiary is the person responsible for the negatives (which we will all suffer from).
Carbon being released into the atmosphere is believed to be one of the main contributors to rapid climate change. Gasoline is a liquid of hydrogen and carbon. When it is burned, the carbon and hydrogens are broken apart and the carbon joins with oxygen and is then typically allowed to escape in to the atmosphere.
This service is hauling around, presumably large amounts of, gasoline, likely using a hydro-carbon burning engine. Usually this gasoline is taken straight to large tanks where many vehicles may come to refill. With this service, much work must be done to move around the gasoline to the vehicles, wherever they might be.
I want to know how much carbon is released into the atmosphere by this service over (or under) the current alternative.
I want a pony. These numbers don't exist. Nobody computes them. If you want to try, knock yourself out.
Now remember that a car doesn't magically get gas from a gas station, it has to drive there, it has to drive back. If this service uses some algorithm to actually drive less to deliver gas than people would independently doing the same thing it could be carbon positive.
No. It won't. A small minority of people will find a service like this valuable. Most people will continue to buy gas the way they do today, until and unless EVs really become practical.
Starting a company to make gasoline powered cars MORE convenient is absolutely unethical. Any engineers working on this project should be ashamed for using their skills to make the world a worse place.
Hi I'm one of the founders. Many people think this upon hearing about the service but the logic is flawed because:
A) It does not consider that we are building more cost effective alternative fuel delivery infrastructure that can help accelerate the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles other than electric such as the Toyota Mirai and Honda FCX Clarity.
B) Does not consider that efficient gasoline delivery can reduce carbon emissions and the number of polluting underground gas station tanks.
Aspirational economies of scale and future technologies developed by others do not change the fact that you have chosen to pour your life energy into selling gasoline from the back of a fleet of pickup trucks.
I think a dozen people have made this comment so far, and I don't get it at all. Is there some reason why the refueling services can't drive around with a truck full of batteries, instead of a truck full of gas?
Takes quite a while to recharge a battery, compared to pumping fuel - the trucks would be much more limited in the number of customers they could serve per day. Also, as electricity is much cheaper domestically, price-sensitive customers would have a much higher incentive to just plug in themselves.
Statistically speaking, nobody is driving EVs. Yet. This kind of business may have a 10 or 20 year realistic opportunity, but that's enough time to make a lot of money.
> The company has engineered its own gas delivery trucks with a proprietary system, called the Fuel Vault, which allows Yoshi to access any car’s tank, even if the gas flap is locked
I'd like to know what a glamorized fuel cell has to do with somehow circumventing the lock on many gas caps.
I imagine it's some sort of tool that somehow defeats the locks on such gas caps and flaps, which poses interesting questions about legality (as they acknowledge in the post). I certainly would not signup for a service that risks breaking or damaging my vehicle, nor am I about to hand over keys to my vehicle either.
How large of a market is there for this really? Frankly, is this a problem really needing solving? This company must charge a premium for the service, which makes your fillups cost more than if you just spent the 2 minutes it takes to pump your own gas.
This is just a guess, but perhaps it's a very strong magnet?
Many gas flap locks seem to be simple solenoids, and it's often relatively simple to change the state of a solenoid using a powerful magnet. Certain low-end electronic-lock safes are susceptible to similar attacks (that's part of the reason why better electronic-lock safes use motor-driven bolts instead of solenoids).
My car (a 2015 Ford Focus) has an actual metal tooth + clamp style lock (like a seat-belt kind of). Without putting something into the lock that prevents it from catching, I don't see how they can unlock my gas flap without somehow allowing other's to unlock it as well.
I'm also skeptical of the long-term prospects of this business model based on the rise of transportation-as-a-service and the inevitable demise of gasoline in favor of EV's. Both of those factors will be especially pronounced in the Bay Area, where this startup hopes to gain a foothold.