Are gas stations beginning to shut down yet, as part of the broader shift to electric vehicles?

I don't think there's any massive shift going on yet, as non-electric vehicles still are extremely widely used. 500 closures of Shell stations is about 4% of their US total of stations, and could be seen as a response to customer demand shifting slightly, sure, and they're just one of many brands. Use of EVs might also be higher percentages in particular geographic locations so it makes sense for brands to strategize around having gas stations in areas where they're used more and closing ones that don't perform as well.

Other stations, like my local Sheetz stations, have introduced chargers as part of what they offer. I think gas station brands doing this will probably be the more common route (just conjecture, but the money in stations is often made in the convenience store, not selling gas, and electric vehicle charging times, in some cases, make a convenience store / restaurant even more compelling). I think a number of companies will adapt over time, but I think this entire transition (if there even is one at all in any reasonable amount of time) is going to be extremely gradual

To me, Shell closing gas stations signals that they might be pulling back from consumer refueling stations in general. I say this because they completely pulled out of the Hydrogen refueling network in California just last year. Then more recently, they dropped out of the 3rd party EV charging market (basically an arrangement where the infrastructure itself isn't necessarily owned by Shell, but operates using their software for a cut of the profit). In fact, despite the article I've linked saying they would keep the service running until the end of April, I know from experience they've already shut the service off because I routinely use a couple stations near my workplace that were affected.

So I'm unconvinced that they're doing this to "better meet customer needs when it comes to EVs". I suppose if you give them the benefit of the doubt, you might be able to infer that their plan is to focus on Shell owned L3 EV charging and cut back on everything else. But even that seems dubious. The couple times I had to rely on their L3 stations, have been some of my worst public charging experiences, to the point I now just filter them out when looking for a place to charge. It's not the people, wait time or locations, its their buggy software and hardware.

I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this, other than it could be Shell is being less than forthcoming about what their actual plans/goals are. Maybe Shell isn't feeling great about it's own finances and is looking to cut costs?

I've seen abandoned gas stations around, but I don't think it has anything to do with EVs. Most of the ones I see have been shutdown since at least 2005 (you can date them based on the remaining prices) and are just slowly being reclaimed by nature. I suspect that the biggest factor was the rise of a few larger ones which were consistently 5-10c cheaper.

As well as more people going to dealers, and not the mechanics which were often housed at the same station.

One local gas station near me still does $20 tire patches, so they'll be getting my business well into my EV ownership. I should probably tell them to install a few fast chargers...

My indirect answer is that I don’t think we’re there yet. A friend of mine lives in a condo which was more than happy to let him set up a charger. Turns out that the way the electrical was originally set up, the system could only handle a maximum of two chargers with a $10k install unless he was willing to pay for a direct feed from the grid with his own circuit box.

I think the prevalence of EVs has a lot to do with your crowd. I know a couple of people that have them. There is a lot to dislike about what’s currently available, nobody (in the us) seems to be offering a basic car that isn’t all touchscreens and subscriptions.

Anecdotally, I haven't seen any gas stations closing. But here in Los Angeles the EV charging stations have gone from reasonable availability to every station within 20 miles always having lines with at least 30 mins wait time. Just in the last 2-3 years.

I charge in my garage overnight, so its usually fine. But i tell people living here to not get an EV unless they are sure they have a good charging situation at home or in their apartment building.

I have a Kia that can't use Tesla stations, so that might have an effect. And I keep hearing that will change soon and adapters will be possible.

Several new gas stations have been recently constructed in my area (Suburban Chicagoland), although some of them have EV chargers included as well as the gas pumps, but usually in much lower numbers. EV adoption has been pretty good around here too. While I don't have statistics, I see plenty of EVs on the road every day here, and I drive one myself.

Anecdotally, I've noticed several gas stations here in Norway removing some of their pumps. I talked about it with the person behind the counter in one of them (where I occasionally buy lunch), and they said the company plans to install charging stations in place of the removed pumps.