Focus first: the 100-year-old gas station may have really changed, because new energy, smart and low-altitude vehicles have completely changed the station that killed it。
As the old driver who stares at no. 92, no. 95, don't think it's fake。
Gas station
You can predict that you'll go to the gas station later, not with oil, with hydrogen, and that the gas station will even be in the air for decades。
This means that the low-altitude refuelling age may really come。
Of course, this phenomenon is only beginning to emerge. For example, you have noticed that the gas station that is frequented has recently changed, with a row of superfilled stakes attached to the gas gun, an electric exchange cabinet in front of the convenience store, and even a hydrogen pump in the corner。
What's the future of the gas station, what's new and what's old
Destiny
In september 2020, my country clearly set out its “bicarbon” strategic objective, the transformation of the energy structure into a fast track and the replacement of fossil energy with clean energy, which has become the core development orientation of the entire industry。
The change in the underlying logic of energy, on the other hand, has led directly to radical changes in downstream transport, with electric cars ushering in a period of full penetration。
According to the production and distribution data issued by csa, the penetration rate of our new energy vehicles in 2025 was 55 per cent, that is to say, for every two new vehicles sold in the domestic market, more than one is a new energy model。
New energy vehicle penetration rate
There's a lot more charge, and there's less oil to sell。
Since 2023, multiple rounds of new energy vehicle price wars have further accelerated market penetration, with new energy vehicle penetration in first- and second-line cities exceeding 70 per cent, and a steady decline in the share of road fuel vehicles. Correspondingly, traditional fuel demand has continued to decline, with the national energy agency (nea) data showing that domestic consumption of finished oil in 2025 has fallen by 12 per cent from its peak in 2019, with gasoline consumption falling by more than 18 per cent。
Research by the chinese pic federation shows that the average daily fuel supply in the country has fallen from about 12 tons in 2019 to less than 8 tons in 2025, and that a large number of stations are facing the difficulty of operating without adequate food。
According to the " blue book for the development of refuelling stations in china (2023-2024) " published by the china petroleum petrochemicals magazine, the total number of gas stations in china by the end of 2023 was 112,787, a decrease of 1. 99 per cent over the same period. Despite a slight decrease in the number of gas stations, the quality of the network has been further improved and the capacity for retail efficiency has increased. The total number of stations in the country will continue to grow by 2025, peaking at about 140,000, and then returning to a reasonable level by 2030, about 110,000。
This pattern is also international and similar。
From the development history of developed countries such as the united kingdom, germany and japan, we have seen similar patterns of change in the number of gas stations over the past few decades, i. E., a decline in the number of stations after peaking and once again stabilization at 30 to 50 per cent。
Change in size of gas stations
In addition, dreixture information has done a simulation that concluded that the replacement of gasoline consumption by new energy vehicles is expected to be 3. 458 million tons in 2025, equivalent to 21 per cent of the national gasoline demand in 2024。
That is to say, with pessimism, 20 per cent of the demand for gasoline in the chinese market will disappear。
Monthly data continue to confirm this trend. As of october 2025, our average monthly consumption of petrol was 12,263,500 tons, a decrease of 5. 04 per cent over the same period, and a decline in monthly consumption of gasoline throughout the year except in october。
Changes in petrol consumption
In retrospect, however, this industry turning point was never the result of problems with the operation of the gas station itself, but of a change in demand across the market. When the main vehicle type on the road is no longer dependent on fuel, it is natural that a single commercial model that sells oil leads to a development bottleneck。
In the face of this irreversible change, the industry did not stand by and redefined the three words " gas station " with a thorough self-renovation。
The new gas station has risen
The killing of an old gas station, the emergence of a new gas station, the decline of a new thing must mean the rise of an emerging thing。
Words are not rough。
What do you mean? Frankly, there will be not only diesel and gasoline, but also new sources of energy. The gas station, naturally, is not the gas station by the road。
In other words, the first step in the industry-wide innovation is a thorough re-engineering of the core concept of the station. We have spoken of gas stations in the past, and the default is the place where gasoline diesel is sold, a recognition that has now been broken。
The core of the gas station is no longer a fuel station, but an energy supply hub for mobile vehicles, where the supply can be completed regardless of the type of energy used by the vehicle。
Gas stations in transition
The resulting changes are the type of energy supplied by gas stations and the overall business pattern. The integrated supply model of oil, electricity, hydrogen and light has moved from pilot to full-scale landing to become a new formulation for the industry。
According to the china gas station industry development report 2025 issued by the china chain operating association, by the end of 2025 more than 32,000 gas stations in the country had been equipped with charging facilities, accounting for 27 per cent of the total number of gas stations; more than 1,200 gas stations had been equipped with hydrogen-added stations or hydrogen-added spares; and nearly 8,000 gas stations had been equipped with distributed photovoltaic systems, with energy storage equipment for spontaneous self-use and after-service。
It is anticipated that 112,000 additional public charging stations will be added this year, bringing the total to 435,000. Moreover, the size of china's liquid cold overcharge market since 2021 is expected to grow nearly 45 times in five years, with a clear pattern of continued expansion。
Scale of increase in the number of new energy configurations
For example, many integrated energy stations in guangdong, equipped with fuel guns, overcharges, power exchange stations, hydrogen mouths, whether fuel trucks, pure trams, hybrid vehicles or hydrogen weight cards, can be supplied within 10 minutes。
Based on a well-established network layout, traffic advantages on the street and a well-established safety management system, the transformation of the gas station complex to an integrated depot has saved nearly 60 per cent of the construction costs of a single new charging station and a hydrogen station, as well as more efficient network coverage of energy supplies。
But it's not really the most subversive, after all, it's on the ground, and air refuelling is actually more sci-fi。
Don't think it's fake; the outbreak of smart and low-altitude economic industries allows these things to operate with supplies。
In many parts of shenzhen, air traffic police began to appear over the years. And the air station will be ready. The first is the supply of energy; the second is the low-altitude flight material and its own “oil”。
In addition to the supply of energy for ground transportation, the operational boundaries of the gas stations continue to expand, starting to match the development needs of the low-altitude economy, and building a global, stereo energy supply network。
Subsequently, with the introduction of the national action programme for low-air economic development, the commercialization of electric vertical lift and landing vehicles, commonly known as flying vehicles, has begun in several cities in the country。
This scene, in reality, has landed. In zhejiangzhou, for example, in the village of qingshan in zhejiangzhou, the expatriate rider gao wei had just received a uav licence at the beginning of the year, and his hot meal was “falling from the sky” from 5 kilometres away; in shanghai, more than 310 political and police drones were included on a “one-stop flight” platform to perform more than 100 scene-related tasks, such as patrolling and traffic mentoring。
At chongqing dae-ahn airport, the first national "spacebuilding" vertical lifter (evtol), which was just completed in early february, is moving the low-altitude equipment boundary from the "flying toy" to the "transport vehicle" with a hard target of 150 km per hour and 300 km。
By way of amplification, it is estimated that our low-altitude economic market will reach 1. 5 trillion yuan in 2025, with the prospect of exceeding 2 trillion yuan in 2030。
The gas stations, which are located throughout the country, certainly fit as a supply node for low-altitude aircraft, and we need to explore the possibility of adding flight car aprons and fast-fill interfaces to the roof to synchronize ground vehicles with low-altitude aircraft。
Future aerial vehicles
As for the exclusive “oil” of the low-altitude flight material referred to earlier, it is not necessarily an energy source, but a “food” for specific needs: information communication。
Vehicles require oil and electricity, and low-altitude flying objects are equally critical for signal transmission in addition to these conventional capabilities。
On 10 february, five departments, including the ministry of industry and information technology, issued a joint implementation opinion on strengthening capacity-building in the information and communication industry to support low-altitude infrastructure development. This is our first national-level document on low-altitude information infrastructure, with clear “hard” communication indicators for low-altitude economic development: by 2027, the national low-altitude public airway terrestrial mobile communication network will cover no less than 90 per cent, developing not less than 10 information infrastructure standards, planning dedicated units for drones and promoting “one-size-one” capacity-building。
What really allows the industry to cross the cycle is never an inherent business, but it is a constant widening of its capacity to keep pace with the demands of the times。
The transition from a fuel station to an integrated energy hub is not a passive self-help for traditional gas stations, but a proactive boost to the energy sector in response to transition trends. As energy structures shift from monolithic to diversified clean energy sources, supply networks must simultaneously complete the upgrade of the whole scene and the whole class。
Changes in the scope and form of the gas station itself go beyond the gas station industry itself and are a microcosm of the wave of technological change across the business world。
The era of fuel and turbines is far away, and new energy and new means of transport are flourishing。
What kind of life does old things change when new things rise
The transformation of gas stations is not an example. In the wave of technological innovation, many of the industries and products we used to know have not been eliminated by the times in exchange for a completely new way of working。
The atm machine, which used to be spread across the streets, used to have a central function of access to cash, which, as mobile payments became more widespread, declined significantly, and many felt that the atm opportunity was completely lost。
The reality, however, is that the atm now has been transformed into an integrated self-help financial terminal that, in addition to basic access payments, can open cards, open online silver, purchase finances, print letters, even pay utilities, social security, and many bank outlets have atm machines, which account for over 70% of non-cash operations。
Atm
Paper train tickets, once the only ticket for a car, have almost withdrawn from our lives with the spread of electronic tickets, but the 12306 platform, which carries train tickets, has long been transformed from a single ticket sales function into a service entrance covering the whole of the trip, which allows hotel reservations, calls, the purchase of tickets to the area of view, the processing of high-intensity tickets, and the widening of the service boundary。
There are also disks, mobile hard drives, which used to store documents, and where the demand for personal use has declined significantly as cloud storage has spread, the relevant manufacturers have not disappeared and have shifted to such tracks as enterprise-level storage, home-based nas storage, car-borne storage, data centre server hard drives, while the market size has doubled over a decade ago. The social security card in our hands, which was initially used only for medical claims, has been transformed into a cartoon that is now available for use as a bank card, for use on public transport subways, for the receipt of pensions, and for all types of government services。
These cases confirm the same industry logic, and technological innovation does not represent the total demise of traditional industries and is a re-establishment of core industry values。
To put it simply, we all have to be busy widening our services。
Times change will never greet you in advance, but as long as we are able to keep up with trends, we will always have our place. Back to the gas station we mentioned at the beginning, in the future you will walk to a station like this, where you may not smell familiar gasoline at all, where you can refuel electric vehicles, switch low-altitude vehicles, charge domestic storage equipment, or even handle routine government, dispatch and dispatch, or take short breaks。
It's not the current station anymore。
But it never disappears, just in a different way, continuing to walk with us. For me in this era, the meaning of this change is equally clear: what makes us stand on our feet is never the right skill and track, the ability to evolve and adapt。
