A Money Making Idea

[Patch]

It amazes me how some folks simple ideas make them a fortune. A company in Vegas just opened up that for $15 a month will come to your car, or cars and fill the gas tank(s)  up for you thus saving you a trip to a gas station. The price per gallon is much nearer to wholesale than retail. According to the reported story the company already has 2K customers in the short time it has been open. Such a deal. 

[pganapathy]

Actually sounds like a brilliant business idea.  I suppose it depends on whether you spend more than 15 dollars on the trips to the gas station.  For me, it probably wouldn't work out too well, because I fill up on my way to or from work.  Still, if the difference in price of theirs to retail makes it worthwhile, I say go for it.  Good luck to them

[14ledo81]

30 minutes ago, pganapathy said:

Actually sounds like a brilliant business idea.  I suppose it depends on whether you spend more than 15 dollars on the trips to the gas station.  For me, it probably wouldn't work out too well, because I fill up on my way to or from work.  Still, if the difference in price of theirs to retail makes it worthwhile, I say go for it.  Good luck to them

 

I don't think this is what they are getting at.  IMO they are targeting customers looking to save time.

[RussUK]

I'd be worried about where the fuel was coming from and its quallity. If you do the job yourself at leat you know whats going in your tank

[Yukari]

I think that is a great idea. For $15 a month would you avoid the hassle of having to gas up your car yourself?

now if they also check your oil and fluid levels and tire pressure, I would definitely sign up. 

[pganapathy]

@14ledo81, you have a point there, but for me I save neither time nor money because I fuel up directly on the way to or from work.  Ok, a 50 metre diversion into and out of the petrol station :).  This saving only makes sense if you drive out of your way to fill up or have bunks that are super full all the time and take nothing less than 15 minutes once you get in.  Otherwise I can't see how much time you actually save, unless you have multiple vehicles at home and need to take them out just to refuel.

[chspeed]

10 hours ago, Patch said:

It amazes me how some folks simple ideas make them a fortune. A company in Vegas just opened up that for $15 a month will come to your car, or cars and fill the gas tank(s)  up for you thus saving you a trip to a gas station. The price per gallon is much nearer to wholesale than retail. According to the reported story the company already has 2K customers in the short time it has been open. Such a deal. 

Another "On Demand" business. This one is actually interesting because of the implications for electric cars, which is what I would focus on. Instead of competing with gas stations, why not offer to quickly "charge" electric cars instead of homes and gas stations needing to build new pods.

[Patch]

5 minutes ago, chspeed said:

Another "On Demand" business. This one is actually interesting because of the implications for electric cars, which is what I would focus on. Instead of competing with gas stations, why not offer to quickly "charge" electric cars instead of homes and gas stations needing to build new pods.

Their you go. Another mind working at a peak level. 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, pganapathy said:

@14ledo81, you have a point there, but for me I save neither time nor money because I fuel up directly on the way to or from work.  Ok, a 50 metre diversion into and out of the petrol station :).  This saving only makes sense if you drive out of your way to fill up or have bunks that are super full all the time and take nothing less than 15 minutes once you get in.  Otherwise I can't see how much time you actually save, unless you have multiple vehicles at home and need to take them out just to refuel.

It still saves you time. It saves you the time to drive to the gas station (even if it's right off the road, that's a minute or two), plus the time it takes for you to pay, stand there pumping your gas, etc.!

I'd pay $15/month for someone to fill my gas tank up at a competitive per-gallon rate, and I don't even go very many places. I do, however, value my time.

[jamo]

3 hours ago, chspeed said:

Another "On Demand" business. This one is actually interesting because of the implications for electric cars, which is what I would focus on. Instead of competing with gas stations, why not offer to quickly "charge" electric cars instead of homes and gas stations needing to build new pods.

If there was an easy way to "quickly" charge current electric cars, it wouldn't take several hours as it is. And even if you could, how do you make it portable?

[Lihu]

2 minutes ago, jamo said:

If there was an easy way to "quickly" charge current electric cars, it wouldn't take several hours as it is. And even if you could, how do you make it portable?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Lihu said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

Be serious @Lihu.

21 minutes ago, jamo said:

If there was an easy way to "quickly" charge current electric cars, it wouldn't take several hours as it is. And even if you could, how do you make it portable?

Right. Even the fast-charging ones available for Smart cars (not the biggest batteries in the world) take 4-5 hours.

[nevets88]

The only way I can see the electric charging service work is not to charge but swap and a big assumption being that car batteries are hot swappable. A truck loaded with lots of pre-charged batteries would come buy and do a quick switcheroo.

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

The only way I can see the electric charging service work is not to charge but swap and a big assumption being that car batteries are hot swappable. A truck loaded with lots of pre-charged batteries would come buy and do a quick switcheroo.

When I bought (leased) the SMART Electric car, we asked a lot of questions, and learned that the batteries cost more than the car itself. As in… you can buy the car for $25k, but if you were to just buy the batteries, that would cost you about $30 to $35k.

Government rebates for customers and for Mercedes-Benz make it feasible to do that as a business, and there are various ways in which MB will "recover" the batteries (like if you upgrade to a new model, etc.) to refurbish them or something.

[Golfingdad]

Hmmm, I thought this thread was going to be about a Nigerian Prince.

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Hmmm, I thought this thread was going to be about a Nigerian Prince.