It will be faster than you think, mostly because gas stations will be closing and so the inconvenience of fueling you car will cut that tail of - except for niches where EVs are particularly bad.
Spare parts and maintenance are likely going to be a problem first for ICE owners, rather than fuel availability. Who would be crazy enough now to invest in (and maintain) a factory for producing ICE-specific parts? Parts and skills for ICE will become scarcer and more expensive, making a new EV look economical to ICE owners in very short time. It has already been a few years now where it has been uneconomical not just to build a new fossil fuel power plant, but also to continue operating them due to maintenance costs. I'd suggest the same thing with ICE vehicles--it becomes easier/cheaper to run an EV rather than an old ICE quicker than people may usually assume.
The biggest cost of producing parts is making the tooling to mass produce them. Manufactures will retool to produce other stuff once they have enough of a given part, but if there's a shortage (or they think there will be one soon) they'll bring the old tooling out of storage and set up the line again. It's common for auto companies to supply new parts for decades after a car is made.
Heck, Mazda makes new parts for the original Miata.[1] While the first generation Miata is a recognizable car, it's not very popular. A total of 433,000 were produced. Maybe half are still on the road today. That may sound like a lot, but twice as many Ford F-150s are sold every year. If it's profitable to keep making parts for 200,000 vehicles, it's going to be a long time before most ICE cars run into shortages.
The investment in parts is already made. All they need to do is not scrap the tooling. Until the car the part went to is 15 years old that isn't worth doing as you will make more from selling parts than from the cost of storing the tooling. Common parts like filters will be around for much longer. Parts that rarely break will have the tools destroyed sooner, but with millions of ICE cars on the road there will be a lot of needs for parts even if the need is less than today.
It seems reasonable that most gas stations will add fast charging stations no? And then maybe add a coffee shop or quick food place that you can spend money at and be the real source of revenue for these locations.
Its not going to be a cheap or painless conversion, but there is absolutely a path forward for most gas stations I think.
some of them. I think most will drop fuel completely, some will turn into stores where local buy milk or something, but many will close completely as not needed since people charge at home.
In denser areas charging will move to mall like areas where people will get out of the car for longer. Gas stations are not generally not setup for people to hang out for 30 minutes, they don't have enough space for people to park that long. They are setup for use the bathroom, grab a snack and get out. Most people charging will want to get groceries or other supplies they are getting anyway (which is to say since they can't charge at their apartment they are going to look for places to shop where they can recharge)
In rural areas (truck stops) are more setup for spending more time. They often have small restaurants already so you can eat inside. They are more general purpose stores and often serve the locals as the place to buy things between trips to dollar general or the city. They have more parking (land is cheap so they will buy more if needed), so there is place to put in all the needed EV chargers. Plus they get a lot more customers who are on trip so long they couldn't charge at home.
It's an interesting problem. Aside from the toxic cleanup issue when decommissioning the underground fuel tanks or an attached service garage, the layout of a traditional gas station is also limiting. Unlike a modern truck stop off a major highway, the majority of urban stations have a small footprint optimized for road access and throughput, but not simultaneously lingering customers.
Even without the pump islands, there isn't much room for customer parking. These stations are often situated at corners with multiple driveways, small parking areas, and no adjacent street parking. Unless you can merge adjacent parcels for redevelopment, these small stations may only be able to support a convenience store, coffee shop, drive-through food stop, or some other quick turnaround. They don't have the right layout to support lots of simultaneous customers unless they are arriving on foot or by mass transit instead of personal vehicles.
Probably not, people charge at home or apartment and start everyday with 300 miles of range. No need to ever visit a charger unless you're on a long trip.
That combined with bigger stores like 7-Eleven, CVS, Walmart, etc.. adding their own charging stations will kill most gas stations.
By then people who need fuel will know to special order it. Because if you are the only one selling gas that means someone lives in a less dense area that can't get fuel at all. Either that or you have competition, they are just not across the street and so you have to keep prices low enough people won't drive the extra miles to your competition.
