好英语网汽车加油站的末日到了吗？
There’s an oil boom right now. Worldwide demand for fuel is the highest it has been in eight years and it’s not showing any signs of stopping. The United States Department of Energy predicts that 2017 will show record demand from Americans, as miles driven increase and car sales skyrocket to all-time highs — just as they did in 2015 and 2016.
当前的石油市场非常繁荣。全球燃油需求量创8年最高水平，而且丝毫没有停止增长的迹象。美国能源部预计，由于汽车行驶里程增长，加之汽车销量飙升至历史最高水平，2017年的全美燃油需求量将延续2015和2016年的趋势，再创历史记录。
In the third quarter of 2015, cars in the UK were up 600,000, to 25.8 million. And America has 275 million cars on the road right now. Many of those cars in both countries need petrol. But there’s this weird thing happening in the petrol industry that doesn’t seem to be logical when you look at those numbers: For over a decade, the number of petrol stations around the UK and the US have been slowly, and very steadily, declining. From 2002 to 2012 the number of fueling stations in America went from 170,018 to 156,065. So, what's going on? How is it possible that demand for fuel can be so high, when places built exclusively for accessing it are disappearing?
2015年第三季度，英国汽车保有量增长60万辆，达到2580万辆。美国目前的汽车保有量为2.75亿量。这两个国家的很多汽车都需要燃油。但从数据上看，石油行业却发生了一件似乎不太符合逻辑的事情：过去10年，英国和美国的加油站数量正在缓慢而稳步地减少。从2002至2012年，美国加油站数量从170,018座减少到156,065座。究竟发生了什么事情？既然燃油需求量如此之高，加油站的数量为什么不增反降？
老式加油站
Limited land
土地稀缺
If you look just at big cities around the world, the answer to that question is pretty obvious and simple. It’s real estate.
如果你看看世界各地的大城市，就会发现这个问题的答案既明确又简单，这一切都要归咎于房地产市场。
New Yorkers that drive, for example, know all too well that Manhattan is a “fuel desert.” According to a New York Times story on the dwindling access to petrol in the city, there are only 50 stations on the island (though other local news outlets report that number is more like 39), the city lost 30 in the last eight years, and there’s not a single one below 23rd Street. It’s a story that any big city with expensive real estate will echo. All you have to do is look at the most expensive neighbourhoods, and you will find the fewest petrol stations.
例如，平时开车的纽约人都知道，曼哈顿是一个"燃油沙漠"。根据《纽约时报》的一篇关于该市加油站减少的报道，整个曼哈顿岛只有50座加油站（但其他当地媒体认为这一数字更有可能是39座），该市过去8年减少了30座加油站，23街以南的地区甚至连一座加油站都没有。房地产价格昂贵的大城市都在上演相同的一幕。只要看看价格最贵的社区，就会发现周围的加油站数量必然最少。
According to the US National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), San Francisco, one of the hottest real estate markets in America, lost 40 percent of its petrol stations in 2014 and replaced them with housing. And, according to The Economist, London only has four stations inside its central congestion zone. When buying air rights can be as expensive buying land (like it is in NYC) a single story building — or a mostly empty lot — simply doesn’t make sense.
根据美国国家便利店协会（NACS）的统计，作为全美最热的房地产市场之一，旧金山2014年失去了40%的加油站，取而代之的是住宅。而据《经济学人》报道，伦敦的中央拥堵区只有4座加油站。当土地上方的空间价格跟购买土地一样昂贵时（纽约市就是这种情况），单层建筑——或者经常空置的车位——就显得没有意义。
But while that’s a good argument for congested areas where people don’t even really drive that much, it doesn’t quite explain why the decline in stations is an international trend that also affects suburban and rural areas. After all, these are the places where consumers are buying the most petrol. The petrol-guzzling Ford F series pickup trucks have been America’s most popular selling vehicle for the last two decades — and they’re not exactly city cars.
然而，虽然有人认为这是因为交通拥堵地区的人们不经常开车所致，但却无法解释加油站数量减少已经成为一个国际趋势，甚至影响到郊区和农村地区。毕竟，这些地方的消费者燃油消耗量最大。福特F系列皮卡这种"油老虎"过去20年成为美国最畅销的车型——这实际上并非城市用车。
Petrol isn't a filling station's moneymaker
加油站不靠卖油赚钱
The first major factor to consider when trying to understand this phenomenon is that petrol accounts for only about 30 percent of the profit at most stations around the US. That’s according to data gathered by the NACS, whose members sell about 80 percent of all US petrol. The average retailer sells about 4,000 gallons of petrol per day. That only amounts to about $200 per day in profit, according to Jeff Lenard, vice president of Strategic Industry Initiatives for the NACS. “If you only have that you’re going to close down. The only place you will see [a petrol-only] station is in the movies,” says Lenard.
想要理解这种现象，首先要考虑一个重要因素：卖油仅占美国多数加油站利润的30%左右。这项数据来自NACS，其会员大约出售了美国80%的燃油。平均每家零售商每天卖出约4,000加仑燃油。而NACS战略行业项目副总裁杰夫·雷纳德（Jeff Lenard）表示，这项业务每天仅贡献约200美元的利润。"只有在电影里才能看到只能加油的加油站。"雷纳德说。
Part of the reason for that is because of our current historically low petrol prices worldwide. Another part of the reason is that in the past service stations used to rely on mechanics to do car repair and bring in additional income beyond the pumps — but cars are so highly computerised these days they are often much too complex now. Mechanics’ skills have been replaced by prohibitively expensive digitised diagnostic equipment. But the biggest reason of all is that that entire model for how petrol is sold has changed completely in the two decades, thanks almost entirely to big box stores.
出现这种情况的部分原因在于，当前的国际油价处于历史低位。另外一部分原因则是以往的加油站依赖技师来修车，从而获取额外收入——但现在的汽车已经高度电脑化，复杂度大幅提升。技师的技能已经被价格过高的数字诊断设备取代。但造成这一切的最大原因还在于，过去20年的燃油消费模式已经完全改变，这几乎都拜大卖场所赐。
“There has been the change in the constitution of who sells fuel,” says Lenard. Starting in the 1990s price clubs, like megastores and price clubs like Walmart and Costco, starting getting into the fuel game. “Their model was they want you to go out of your way to get fuel,” he says. And he says petrol prices are so inherently tied to emotion: no matter how low or high the price of fuel is, NACS consumer polling always finds that people say they will consider abandoning their fuel vehicles if it goes up just two dollars, and curb the amount of their driving if it goes up by just one dollar. Because of this, the warehouse strores' new model worked. They sold fuel at such incredibly low prices people were willing to travel many, many miles out of their way to get the deal... even if that meant they burned all the money they were saving in fuel getting to and from the store. “Sometimes the inconvenience is an advantage — you have gone so far out of your way to get fuel you might as well go inside and fill up a shopping cart,” he says.
"卖油的主体已经发生变化。"雷纳德说。从20世纪90年代开始，沃尔玛和好市多等大型超市和会员店就开始提供加油服务。"他们的模式是希望你专程去加油。"他说。他还表示，油价与情绪之间的关系非常紧密：无论实际油价有多高或多低，NACS的消费者调查都显示，即使油价仅上涨2美元，人们也会考虑放弃燃油车；如果油价上涨1美元，他们也会考虑减少开车数量。正因如此，仓储式超市的新模式才得以奏效。他们的油价极低，所以吸引人们从好几英里之外的地方专程赶来加油……即便他们会在来往超市的路上浪费掉自己因为加油节约的钱。"有的时候，这种不方便反而是一种优势——既然已经开了这么远的路，你或许会顺便去超市买点东西。"他说。
In other words, the new model took the money out of petrol. Big box stores weren’t selling fuel cheap because they wanted to profit on it — they were selling it cheap because they were going to make a profit on all the other stuff consumers purchased after they bought their petrol.
换句话说，这种新模式通过燃油赚到了钱。大卖场出售低价油并不是因为他们想要借此获利，而是希望通过消费者加油之后购买的其他商品获利。
And this model is now finding its way into the more traditional petrol-buying locations. WaWa, for example, one of the Norteastern US’s most famous chain of convenience store filling stations, has recently opened several new locations in downtown Philadelphia that don’t sell petrol at all. And what this means is that even when petrol prices do go back up (as they’ve already started to do at the beginning of the year and are predicted to do more in 2018) we won’t start seeing lots of new filling stations popping up to take advantage.
这种模式如今进入了更加传统的加油站。例如，美国东北部最著名的连锁便利店加油站WaWa最近就在费城市中心开了几家根本不能加油的新店。这意味着，即便油价回升（从今年初就开始出现这种情况，预计2018年还将更加明显），我们也不会看到很多新加油站因此涌现出来。
Even electric vehicles aren’t likely to put a damper on this new model — because if you have to stop and recharge your battery you’ll still be following that up with your regular filling station habits, like buying a cup of coffee or a banana. “If you were to ask the general public: 'How do you feel about gas filling stations going away and still being able to fuel?' A significant percentage would say it sounds good. But if you say you lose the sandwich and drink and all the other things beyond the gas, then the conversation changes,” says Lenard.
即使电动汽车也不太可能抑制这种新模式——因为，如果你必须要停车充电，仍然会保留定期前往加油站时养成的习惯，例如买一杯咖啡或一根香蕉。"如果你问公众一个问题：'你对加油站消失但却仍然可以加油这种现象作何感想？'有很大一部分人会说这听起来不错。但如果你说加油站只能加油，不能买三明治、饮料和其他东西，他们的态度就会变化。"雷纳德说。
The only thing that could eventually upend this model, he says, is the inevitable future of autonomous vehicles.
他认为，唯一能够最终颠覆这种模式的是无人驾驶汽车这种必然趋势。
Those cars, he says, will make all the decisions about where and when to stop for refueling. And no one knows for sure what a petrol station will look like when it’s no longer catering to the whims of the consumer — but instead trying to predict the needs of the computer running their cars.
这些汽车可以完全自主决定在何时何地停车加油。没有人敢肯定，当未来的加油站不再迎合消费者的意愿，而是努力预测车载电脑的需求时，这种地方究竟会变成什么样子。