Going To The Gas Station Must Really Suck

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I’m sitting at a car wash right now. To get to the car wash, I go through the gas-pumping area of a gas station. It’s one of the only times these days that I ever end up so close to gas pumps. As I was driving in, I saw an older lady pumping gas and an even older lady (perhaps her mother) in the car waiting. I immediately thought, “Wow, it must really suck going to the gas station every week.”

Naturally, once upon a time, I owned a gas car and routinely went to the gas station. It’s been a long time, though. I lived car free for about 15 years and I’ve had electric cars for the past 5 years. I have rented many gas cars, but that’s not the same as going to the gas station every week, and it’s been a while even since I’ve had to do that.

Going every week or so to the gas station before getting home or on the way out, pumping the smelly (and harmful) liquid into one’s car, paying that rather big bill for the gas, putting the dirty nozzle back onto the pump, and finally getting back to where you were going — what a pain! I would abhor looking at that big gas bill week after week. I can’t put myself in those shoes, but I imagine that as I started noticing so many EV commercials and started seeing electric vehicles at every intersection and in every parking lot, I’d be thinking, “Hey, wouldn’t it be nicer to charge a clean electric car at home than go to the gas station week after week? How much money could I save by charging an EV rather than filling up this gas car?#8221;

People have a tough time with change. Going into the EV era, they have concerns about charging away from home and driving range. However, imagine if it was reversed — imagine if we were going from EVs to gas car for some reason. Can you imagine the aversion to smelly gas stations, expensive stops at the gas pump, oil leaking in the driveway, having to go out of your way to fill up? There would be so many headlines and articles about how ridiculous gasoline cars are. Because they are.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash