@Ioniq I’m afraid that your statement that “by 2029 you will be lucky to find a petrol station anywhere” is way off the reality of what the near future will look like
Let’s look at some facts. The ZEV mandate only applies to brand new cars. There are currently around 34 million cars on U.K. roads. The average age these cars is 10 years old (and growing – it was 9 years). As that’s an average, for every car that is under 10 years old, there is one that is older than that! Whilst we hear about the % growth in EVs (which from a very low base always sounds impressive) EVs still represent less than 4% of the cars on our roads currently.
Even if the ZEV mandates don’t change (I think they will have to, as the public aren’t playing ball, but let’s park that for now and assume that they don’t change), industry projections are that the number of EVs and hybrid cars on our roads in 2030 will be between 8 and 11 million. Even if there is no growth in the overall number of cars on our roads (highly unlikely given our exploding population), this means that at least 23 million ICE cars will still be on our roads in 2030. That number will drop gradually in the years after 2030, but there will still be many millions of ICE cars on our roads well into the 2040s and beyond.
Fuel station operators are commercial businesses. Therefore there is no way that they will completely turn their backs on the vast majority of motorists who in 2030 will still be driving ICE cars, in order to cater for the minority who will be driving EVs and hybrids (because as explained, they will still be in the minority by 2030). That would be commercial suicide. They will obviously cater for both.
I sincerely hope to still be driving in the 2040s (if I’m still alive 😂) and have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that if I was driving an ICE car then I would have no difficulty whatsoever in refuelling it.