Locke makes £200m move for UK petrol station chain, page-10

The need for "service stations" as we currently know them is going to dramatically decrease over the next decade. A Tesla model S has a 426km range. Easily enough for the vast majority of urban vehicles daily use. Future models will increase in range. Wireless charging docks will advance. People will be able to recharge easily at home, at work and in any parking bay with a wireless charging dock. The car industry will quickly catch up to Tesla. For long journeys, battery swap stations will pop up in region centres between major capitals.

By 2020, cheap battery storage cells will regulate the power of the sun and renewables across the grid. Centralised, high efficiency, baseload gas powered grids will integrate seemlessly with the storage cells. There will be teething problems and growing pains, but the future looks very bright.