Year 2040: the service station of the future has a landing place for air taxis

rethe biggest and most spectacular difference is certainly at the height: the service station of the year 2040 will be several floors. On the ground floor are the gas station store, columns for electricity or gas tanks and pick-up stations for online purchases. Autonomous cars stop on the forecourt and let people in and out.

An access ramp leads to the upper floors. In this country, electric cars are cleaned, maintained and recharged, for example by carpooling. A café and a function room are located on the upper floors. Finally, electric-powered air taxis land on the roof, taking care of pbadengers and transporting them on urban traffic to the desired destination.

From here 2040, the gas station will no longer be what we know today. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has commissioned Aral to carry out an in-depth study on the future of service stations in big cities.

Aral, with 2450 service stations and over two million customers a day, is predestined to worry about the future: after all, gasoline and diesel sales will continue to decline in the near future. coming years because people will own less and, most importantly, other cars – with electric, hybrid or hydrogen engine instead of a gasoline or diesel engine.

To survive this change, Aral wants to turn the gas station into a mobility center. Instead of gasoline, the group wants to earn more money with the services. The trend is already in full swing: in the company's gas station network, Aral already has 60% of the cash register without gasoline or diesel, but only a store purchase or a car wash. The importance and share of revenues other than gasoline and diesel are increasing.

"2040 drive many more women's cars"

According to the calculations of the DLR Transport Research Institute, in 2040, the Germans would still have 43 million cars. This is a six percent decrease from 2017. However, these pbadenger cars are expected to travel more than 700 billion kilometers more per year than today. This is justified, for example, by longer journeys or more frequent use of the elderly. The study speaks of a new generation of car owners: "2040 will drive many more cars for women, and that until old age," he says. Even with more than 80 years, the Germans would not want to give up wanting to be mobile.

In terms of car purchases, two-thirds of hybrid cars dominate in 2040, a combination of electric and gasoline engines. Only a quarter of the stock will consist of pure gasoline or diesel cars. The number of electric vehicles is expected to reach 1.3 million by 2040. This is a multiplication of nearly 54,000 electric cars in early 2018. However, the current federal government's goals are far from being enough. The number of trucks is increasing even more than that of pbadenger cars: it is expected to double by 2040 to reach around 200 billion kilometers per year.

Even looking at the deck of the service station of the year 2040, the differences are striking: the gasoline and diesel columns no longer dominate the table. Instead, Aral expects an average of three to four electric charging stations per station. However, according to the authors of the study, an advanced charging technology would charge the electric car in less than five minutes with a range of 145 kilometers.

The company plans to test such fast charging stations with a capacity of up to 320 kilowatt hours, which Aral will develop alone, in five separate stations next year. "The prognosis of the DLR shows very clearly that there will be no decision regarding a single drive technology or a single fuel," said Aral director Patrick Wendeler. during the presentation of the study.

However, the conventional petrol pump will have to face the competition of a tank robot in 2040, which will automatically fuel autonomous cars or recharge them with electricity. To refuel hydrogen, such robots already exist today.

Life at the future service station will no longer be dominated by pbadenger cars. According to the DLR's prediction, the service station is moving into a transfer zone: customers come with their electric bikes started, connect them to the charging station and continue their journey in a self-driving vanpool vehicle. This refers to a type of shared taxi that drives several people to their desired addresses.

Behind this, there is the belief that by 2040, fleets of autonomous vehicles will dominate roads and private traffic. But the switch to an air taxi, a kind of helicopter with electric motor, waiting on the roof of the service station, entrusts the authors of the study to a realistic part of a "mobility on demand", a mobility on demand.

New service for electric bikes

The DLR anticipates that by 2040, a quarter of the car fleet will consist of autonomous vehicles. Part of it will then be devoted to "ghost travel", ghost travel, road travel and independent day-to-day activities for guests.

For electric bicycles and e-bikes, a new service is already available: battery-powered controllers are being tested at two Aral stations in Berlin. Electronic cyclists can replace charged batteries with empty batteries. Such offers, which could be useful for couriers with cargo bikes, should be available in 2040 on a large scale. Similarly, online order support stations are the usual image of a service station. For the payment of all these services, no cash register should be necessary.

Moreover, after the 2040 study, the gas station and the car wash would still be there. It would be conceivable for customers to order their products online, which are then delivered by an autonomous delivery truck. Aral already works with Rewe in the sector and has converted about a quarter of the stations into small supermarkets and fast food outlets.

Similar partnerships are planned in the future with car sharing companies or autonomous car fleet operators. To this end, British BP, the parent company of Aral, brought together a team of 30 employees looking for cooperation with start-ups.