Filling Stations in the Era of Autonomous Cars

This morning, I was waiting in a queue to refuel my car. So I had a little time to think about filling stations in the upcoming era of Autonomous Cars.

The first question that came into my mind was, whether Autonomous Cars will continue to use gasoline or whether they will use electricity. Personally, I don’t believe that gasoline will survive. On the other hand, electricity does have two major usage disadvantages from a fueling perspective:

• Capacity Calculation: as of today, it is not possible to accurately calculate the remaining capacity of a battery. It depends on too many different factors like weather conditions, battery temperature, or historical battery usage.
• Charge Duration: Tesla for example, states on their homepage a range of 110 km per charging hour. Gasoline motors offer ranges of 800 km or more with a “charge” duration of less than 5 minutes.

There is only a small requirement to eliminate these disadvantages: we just need to standardize the battery packs for power, size, fittings, and have to ensure that they are easy accessible from the outside of the car.

Filling stations of the future will have battery pack exchange tracks, where Autonomous Cars will queue up if they need new energy. Recharging a car will not take more then a few minutes. As soon as the arrives at the “pump”, an automatic replacement of the battery pack takes place.

They will also provide a fleet of recharge support vehicles, allowing recharging on the road: A recharging vehicle will dock behind the car that needs recharging and takes control to keep on driving. Then, the battery pack will be replaced without interruption.

Passengers will no longer care about recharging the car. Autonomous Cars will choose the best available option for recharging based upon available service level agreements and the passengers priorities.

Filling stations will encourage customers to leave the car during the recharging process to buy beverages, visit restrooms or even stay for lunch in the restaurant. Passengers can take a coffee break or perform lightweight physical exercises to prevent them from muscle aches during their trip.

Service offerings will depend on the local environment of the filling station. Traveling passengers are more likely on highways or in the countryside, because of the longer travel times and distances. Conversely, the driving distances in cities are often short, so there is no need for a recharging stop with a passenger on board.

To convince passengers to use their cars, car manufacturers or car sharing services will have exclusive Service Level Agreements with filling stations, allowing passengers to use the offered services for free. Filling stations that are able to operate in and beyond country boundaries under one single service level agreement will be in the focus of those car manufacturers and car sharing services.

Indepently-owned and -operated filling stations will have difficulty surviving.