Research has suggested that petrol and diesel refuelling stations could be extinct as early as 2038 according to new research.
Although it is expected that there will still be more than 10 million ICE vehicles on the road by the middle of the next decade, it will become increasingly hard to fill them up at traditional forecourts, EV charging network Be.EV has claimed.
Data shows that the typical forecourt has already decreasing from roughly 40,000 in 1967 to 8,353 in 2023 – a decrease of 75%.
The news comes as large-scale operators are moving to electric sites, with Shell divesting 1,000 of its retail stations by the end of 2025, and putting cash into EV charging stations.
BP is also planning to sell 1,200 petrol stations, and recently refurbished an old petrol and diesel forecourt in London as an EV charging hub, removing the former fuel tanks from the site.
In addition, forecourt operator MFG has announced large-scale plans to upgrade its stations for electrification.
Be.EV has also repurposed an old abandoned petrol station in Manchester, turning it into a charging hub. The operator is now calling on the UK Government and other EV charging providers to develop plans for ICE forecourts to be converted to electric charging hubs.
Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Be.EV, said:
“There are so many headlines about range anxiety for EVs, yet petrol station numbers have been tumbling at such a rate that it might soon be commonplace for petrol drivers to struggle to find a pump.
“Rapid and ultra-rapid EV charging is rapidly stepping in to fill the gap, but we need the government and other charging providers to put old petrol station land to use. We’ve shown the industry how to do it with the Manchester Charging Oasis.
“It’s clear we need to call the undertaker in for petrol and diesel stations, and start putting this soon-to-be-useless land to work so it gives our drivers the rapid and ultra-rapid charging they need.”
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