> Regular gas stations rarely have a line of people waiting for a pump.
I can understand the rareness part, but some gas stations are known for being discounters, but I still haven't seen them use it, despite their traffic jams.
It's not terribly uncommon for some jurisdictions (sometimes at a municipal level) to not allow self-serve gas stations. Usually presented as a safety measure, but also an economic one (requires more employees).
It's way more than that. Imagine trying to open a gas station without being required to provide restrooms, handicapped spaces, environmental permitting, and all the other headaches that come with opening any other business location, let alone the requirements that are gas station specific.
Especially since time to charge basically guarantees the occupants will be getting out of the car, which isn't the case for 5 min fill-ups at gas stations.
> What I don't understand is why no gas station other than Costco has hoses that can reach around a vehicle.
Regular gas stations rarely have a line of people waiting for a pump. Costco often does. Managing that queue becomes much easier if any car in line can take any open gas pump, without worrying about which side the tank door is on (or messing with the flow of traffic by trying to back into a spot).
> some people might not be able to get cigarettes from the gas station, or buy gas without a credit card.
Switching to credit card kiosks won't help. It's usually illegal to have a gas station operating without an attendant. Something to do with that whole danger of blowing up and killing lots of people thing.
> maybe, out of 5 gas stations, 1 will remain open and now have 5 times as many customers
Except it costs some money to open and close the store, costs some money to have alarms & surveillance while the store is closed, costs the store in damages, and more than that, costs customers who will prefer the store that will always be open, even during normal hours. It may not all be as wasteful as you think.
And what happens when the store that can justify staying open happens to be the one that doesn't provide diesel, propane, milk, or similar? It can be very detrimental to the city.
But if there are already enough gas stations to service all gas cars, then building another when the number of gas cars isn't going up makes little business sense.
I'd understand it in a town with regular queues at gas stations. But there aren't many of those left today.
This seems quite broken? Passenger car gas stations in the US, and my limited experience in Germany, are designed for cars to stop for 5 minutes to get ~300 miles of range. Truck stops are designed to accommodate quite long stays but those are much less dense and only on major freeway routes.
The original (and HN) article title is clickbaity. This isn't a "will". It's not a law yet.
> How exactly does a pay-at-the-pump gas station function without internet?
I realize that there are gas stations where you can't pay at the pump, but that's not the claim I was responding to in the PC.
Regardless, if you are using your credit card to pay for your gas (which I am certain you can do in Oregon gas stations), the gas station is utilizing internet in order to give you gas.
> If they need to start paying $15h/h and have to close from 1am to 5am, some people might not be able to get cigarettes from the gas station, or buy gas without a credit card.
You mean they might not be able to buy gas at all. Gas stations will shut off their pumps when they close, so you can't even do self-service credit-card purchases.
> Presumably that would be better for a model where you want people to stick around and buy things, not worse.
Gas stations occupy an interesting place in American life: some stations - often those in urban areas - are designed for “get in, grab a pack of peanuts, get out” transactions, but others in rural areas serve as a local gathering area. Pre-Covid (and, let’s be honest, even post-Covid) the gas stations near me are full of people sitting at tables eating hot food and passing time.
What is amusing is that the same gas stations that encourage to have people sit and stay a while tend to be located in areas where EVs are extremely uncommon.
> Never made sense to me, gas stations are everywhere and filling up is quick.
Gas stations are not everywhere, and can be few and far between on certain routes, and more to the point filling up being quick may be the normal conditions, but if you are old enough (or have lived in the right–or maybe wrong would be more accurate–places even without being that old), you have experience of times when filling up has not been quick, or even, on any given day for any given car, necessarily permitted.
You can add a stop, but it's limited to gas stations, coffee shops and restaurants. Why? I don't know.
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