The electric-car charging stations that I have seen at petrol stations elsewhere in Europe are not actually maintained by the petrol station. Rather, it appears that the petrol stations just allow charging-station brands to rent a portion of their plots of land to erect their infrastructure on. Consequently, requiring car charging at all petrol stations, instead of being a financial burden, may actually allow them to increase their income.
Also, since margins on petrol are so low, many petrol stations make their profit from their shops, not from the fuel itself. Since it takes some time for a car to charge, customers are likely to spend more time and therefore more money in the petrol station’s shop.
> Since so few of them are, I assume that it's not beneficial.
> If the government wants this, it should pay station owners to do it.
Cause and effect. It would be profitable if there were enough BEVs, and there would be enough BEVs if people weren’t afraid they might not be able to find somewhere to recharge.
As I mentioned, already petrol stations in many countries do not actually profit from the sale of petrol since margins are so low. Rather, their profits stem largely from the attached convenience store.
Because you can charge it in a few minutes at a gas station! Germans don't have garages, generally speaking - there's this concept that's a mystery to Americans called on-street parking.
>If it were the case that allowing charging was an economic benefit to the owners of gas stations, I guess they'd already be doing it.
Chargers require capital outlay. Unless you can prove that your revenue is going to offset the capital outlay fairly quickly (<1 year), I'm not going to do it given the margins on most gas stations.
That's exactly my point. The station owners mostly aren't stupid.
If it were a great deal (measuring by NPV), you'd see companies formed to raised capital and install charging stations at gas stations in some sort of revenue sharing / land leasing arrangement. In fact, there are such companies, and they are slowly marching down the path.
Again, if the government wants to make this happen, there's an easy solution: provide the capital.
My guess is the real limitation is infrastructure. Even if you already have a good power line relatively close, the cost to build something that can deliver multiple megawatts is probably not trivial. Maybe the gov't should subsidize that part.
There is no way that providing electric charging at gas stations is a boost to all gas station's revenue. Consider extremely rural gas stations for example. (Yes, I am aware Germany is more dense than the US)
Also, since margins on petrol are so low, many petrol stations make their profit from their shops, not from the fuel itself. Since it takes some time for a car to charge, customers are likely to spend more time and therefore more money in the petrol station’s shop.