Independent filling stations in the UK have already been driven out of business by the supermarkets. There are still some BP and Total stations around but the one site operations are history.
I don’t know if it’s still there but I used to fill my truck at an independent alongside a very busy main road. The site was originally owned by an oil company and for some reason had huge storage capacity. The guy who bought it used to buy his diesel on the Rotterdam market in ten thousand litre lots.
Yes, i imagine that old time service stations had a decent profit margin from car repairs, as well as oild changes and tires. As car repair became more technical and needed better specific training on models, most stations dropped the service bays - leaving it to dealers and specialty shops. it seems to me too, the small stations then are being replaced by fewer but larger stations. The corner gas station might have had 2 or 4 pumps, and a metal tank. When it was time to replace that tank (and possibly clean up), it was cheaper to close. “Truck Stops” or big stations with 16 to 20 pumps seem to be more the norm nowadays. The size probably drives the traffic to the snack bar etc. where the store size and array of merchandise is also much greater than in that corner station. Those small stations aren’t worth building today - no profit.
Unless suddenly oil jumps back to that 2008 price of $150/barrel, I don’t expect North America to be abandoning the gasoline vehicle in a hurry. However Biden’s promise to vastly expand charging stations, and his likely push to reinstate vehicle efficiency standards (as part of the Paris Accord?), may accelerate that trend. I assume part of the reason gas stations are disappearing and consolidating may have to do with the more efficient vehicles of today. I still remember my buddy trying to figure out his 1970(?) Pontiac station wagon’s consumption - as far was we could see, a little under 15 miles per imperial gallon. Yikes!
i don’t live in a place with onerous regular emissions checks, but I suppose that sort of regulation could also drive people to buy electric…