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In both retail business and society in general, two things are meeting a growing demand: automated services and convenience. Robotic refueling accommodates both of these demands.
Autofuel’s robotic refueling systems can refuel a car without any human interaction, no matter which type of fuel or energy source the car needs.
When the car arrives at the gas station, the system recognizes the number plate, and from the cloud database, the system knows the type of fuel, payment method, and car type of the customer. As soon as the payment has been approved, it asks the driver to position the car, with parking instructions on screen.
It opens the fuel door, grabs a fuel nozzle (which could also be an electric plug or hydrogen nozzle) and then starts the refueling. When the tank is full or the desired amount has been reached, it retracts the nozzle and places it back in the dispenser, and the car can leave.
There’s no need to explain how that differs from manual refueling, everyone knows – refueling hasn’t changed since the invention of the car.
Today, products with automated services are chosen in favor of products with manual tasks. Just look at cars, most car manufacturers don’t even produce cars with manual transmission anymore. Automatic transmission is the customers’ preferred choice. Even though shifting gears manually is not a big problem, as the driver has plenty of time to do that while driving.. Dishwashers have been around for many decades, using two hours on the dishes you can do yourself in 15 minutes. Robotic lawn mowers are widespread, and the list continues.
Now ask yourself, will automated services be a more or less requested service in the future?
We can continue with convenience. In the fuel retail industry, it has been a strong competitive factor, if not the strongest. Just look at this year’s Unity Expo, where the biggest hall was allocated to everything around convenience. Coffee, car wash, food, etc. Everything you practically could provide yourself with a little effort.
Now ask yourself again, will convenience be a more or less requested service in the future?
Autofuel robotic refueling systems offer both convenience and an automated service that will both fit in for today’s competitive fuel retail market, and for future mobility, no matter the type of fuel.
Manual refueling with payment directly at the dispenser takes around 4 minutes. With robotic refueling the driver gets these 4 minutes back. Which means every customer now has 4 minutes more free time at the gas station. With just 350 customers a day, this will add up 24 hours more time to sell coffee and sandwiches.
Just like a robotic lawnmower or a dishwasher, robotic refueling is today a “nice to have”’ that can give you more time or accelerate your business. But future mobility is soon here, where cars are autonomous and in shared mobility services, then robotic refueling will be “a need to have”.
These cars will need to be reloaded with energy of some kind, and that won’t be done by humans.
