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Gas Delivery Startups Want to Fill Up Your Car Anywhere, But It Might Not Be Legal (bloomberg.com)
Eric Newcomer, reporting for Bloomberg: A new crop of startups are trying to make gas stations obsolete. Tap an app, and they'll bring the gas to you, filling up your car while you're at work or at home. Filld, WeFuel, Yoshi, Purple and Booster Fuels have started operating in a few cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Nashville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia. But officials in some of those cities say that driving around in a pickup truck with hundreds of gallons of gasoline might not be safe. "It is not permitted," said Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a spokesman for the San Francisco fire department, adding that if San Francisco residents see any companies fueling vehicles in the city, they should call the fire department. "We haven't talked to them. I don't know about that. It's news to me," said Nick Alexander, co-founder of Yoshi. "You can never ask for permission because no one will give it," said Chris Aubuchon, the chief executive officer at Filld. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it's drafting a policy around gasoline delivery. "Our current fire code does not allow this process; however, we are exploring a way this could be allowed with some restrictions," said Capt. Daniel Curry, a spokesman for the city's fire department.
Call me a statist all you like, but I am 100% for regulation of the equivalent of gas tanker trucks meandering neighborhoods and commercial parks topping off people's cars, and having taxes on that service in order to fund the regulation, because I don't want to see some 20-something communications major driving around every day with a U-Haul full of jerry cans tied down with bungee cords. I say this even though I am 100% behind having the service available, because I'd find it amazingly useful.
The alternative is letting it go unregulated, watching some fly by night operation have their delivery driver explode along with all his cargo, the execs of the company 'vanishing', a media shitstorm, and the industry being literally banned.
Granted, I can see startups trying to put a plastic water tank on the back of a pickup and call it the same thing
Ding! From TFA:
Purple has a fleet of about 80 cars driving around Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County and Seattle with up to a half-dozen five-gallon gas canisters in the trunk.
Are they fucking insane?
Sure, but when is the last time you saw anyone spill any significant quantity of gas while filling their car at a gas station? Maybe a drop or two here or there. And I don't recall seeing any magical method at gas stations to collect gas runoff or evaporated gas. For that matter, it's fairly obvious that a lot more unburned gasoline evaporates into the atmosphere directly out of the tailpipe of the car than from the filling area of the gas station. So it really isn't a big deal if one or two drops spill in a parking lot versus the concrete slab at the filling station.
So, the big question for a gas station is if the tank and the underground plumbing leaks. This happens all the time. Many, many gas stations are significantly contaminated. The equivalent for that in gas fillup services is if the tank and hose leak on the delivery vehicle. As it happens, standards exist already for this sort of thing, since fuel delivery, to gas stations, and as fuel oil (diesel) to homes, is already a thing.
Basically, there isn't a rational reason to object to this as long as some basic standards are followed.
We already have a national disaster waiting to happen.
Millions of untrained laypersons fuel their vehicles, and often other people's vehicles, unlicensed and unregulated.
Hate to disrupt your bubble, but that shit is all regulated to hell. It's on specific property, and those facilities have to get inspected frequently.
So yeah, it is regulated... already.
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Have you ever actually BEEN to a gas station? Did you ever wonder 'why is that concrete slab there'? The whole area is usually asphalt, but where the pumps (and where the tanker delivers) is concrete. And that concrete usually has a pattern of grooves around the perimeter. Do you think that is just a nice design they all happened to like? The concrete is there for three reasons: prevent spills (which DO happen) from seeping into the ground, keep spills in one place (the grooves) so it can be properly cleaned up, and because gasoline is incredibly damaging to asphalt.
When you are done looking at the ground, look up. See all those nozzles sticking out of the canopy? More fancy design? No. Automatic fire suppression. Can you think of any reason THAT might be a good idea?
Yes, gas station leaks do sometimes happen. And who is responsible when they do? The property owner. Just think of how happy parking lot owners are going to be when some jackass not only damages the lot with a spill, but leaves them with contaminated property THEY are responsible for. No sane parking lot owner would ever allow something stupid like this in their lot.
And where did you get the idiotic idea that unburned fuel comes out the tailpipe? That stuff you see dripping is water, not fuel. If unburned fuel is coming out something is seriously wrong, and an overheated converter and possible vehicle fire are coming shortly.
The actual model being used is "we require stationary gas retailers to be licensed, regulated, and inspected and are applying the same standard to mobile refueling."
One is legally regulated (already in place) the other is "oh shit, that is something current laws don't account for" retroactive regulation for something that isn't stationary.
From your quoted article
“Our current fire code does not allow this process; however, we are exploring a way this could be allowed with some restrictions,”
Which is utter bullshit. Take a look here (hint, already legal) http://www.transferflow.com/fu...
With a Transfer Flow refueling tank, you don’t have to guess! Our refueling tanks are Department of Transportation (DOT) legal to carry and transfer gas, diesel, ethanol, methanol, kerosene and jet fuel in all 50 U.S. states. Having a DOT legal refueling tank from Transfer Flow means you won’t get red tagged and fined by your Highway Patrol for carrying an illegal fuel tank in the bed of your truck. Click here to see our Special Permit from the Department of Transportation.
Good luck preventing that which already exists, simply because it disrupts existing markets.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Legal to carry does not mean legal to distribute commercially. You'll need additional permits in each state to do that, and I bet they don't have them.
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