Long before Yoshi decided to launch today in the Birmingham area, a Hoover resident was waiting for them.

Christian says he commutes about an hour a day to work. Not long ago, he read about gas delivery services popping up around the country and downloaded the Yoshi app knowing the company was not yet available. He wanted an alert when it was.

“I’ll drive till the empty light comes on,” he said. “I have no energy to go to the gas station after work unless the cars about to stop. With Yoshi I never have to think about it.”

Birmingham today becomes the 20th U.S. city where Yoshi is active, and the first in Alabama. Its availability will be in Birmingham, Homewood, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Pelham, Highland Park and Cahaba Heights, to begin.

Dubbed the “Uber of service stations,” the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has been in business since 2015. It offers several vehicle maintenance services that can be carried out in your driveway, These include gas delivery, car wash and car detailing, tire check, fluid and windshield wiper replacement and oil change, Yoshi also promises to match the lowest fuel price in a customer’s zip code.

Membership starts at $16 a month, according to the website. President and COO Bryan Frist said he and co-founder Nick Alexander conceived the service shortly before their graduation from the Harvard Business School. They looked among industries ready for the kind of tech disruption happening in other fields, like healthcare and transportation. The logical target, Frist said, was the gas station business model, basically unchanged for a century.

“We thought, it makes zero sense for someone to take their vehicle, take time out of their day, and we thought we could change that,” Frist said.

Now the company has a number of big name investors, including NFL legend Joe Montana, the NBA’s Kevin Durant and General Motors. Yoshi also partners with ExxonMobil and Firestone. 2018 was a year of aggressive expansion for the company with more planned for the future.

The Birmingham launch, Frist said, is modeled on an earlier one in Nashville. The company sees the Southeast as a huge potential market, with cities that don’t rely on mass public transportation, and where customers are receptive to new tech concepts without being oversaturated by them.

“People who see the value in this are people who value their time,” Frist said. “It’s a necessity - people have to get fuel. And there’s a fine line between convenience and luxury. But our customers are CEOs and security guards, hourly workers, pizza delivery people.”

App Yoshi will dispatch someone to fill up your gas tank, as well as change tires, wiper blades, fluid, and other services.

Yoshi dispatches trucks to customers' homes. They also have marketed the service as a corporate perk. One tech provides routine maintenance, while another, who is a certified mechanic, handles more specialized services.

“Pick a day, time slot, the services you want and just wait for them to come,” Christian said. "Everything can be changed on the fly. It’s super flexible. They come take care of your car and leave. You’ll miss them if you’re not paying attention.

The company also markets itself with three stats. “If you use all our services,” Frist said, “you’ll save about $240 in gas, you’ll gain about 33 hours of convenience, and you’ll save about three trees in (carbon dioxide) savings.”