Why Some Cars Have Gas Tank Fillers on the Left or the Right
jalopnik.com
jalopnik.com
A bit of web trivia, one of the reasons web sites do this is because of Google. If you are using Google ads, and most web sites do, you have to conform to their guidelines with respect to ads when you come from Google. However, if you are transitioning from an internal link all bets are off you can do what you want. As a result you see a design pattern where a site tries to get you to the page with a search result, and then tries to get you to click to another page to get to more profitable (for the web site) ads.
And in the same vein it's not greedy at all to castigate such a site for having the audacity to sacrificing a little usability for increased revenue.
But compare to TTAC, which manages to stay on topic, has excellent reporting, great stories, and uses simple ads.
Huh? Any source for this?
The short of it is that Google penalizes pages if too big a percentage of the above-the-fold content is filled with ads. So if you want your pages to rank highly, you need to keep the ad real-estate reasonable. However, once someone gets to your site via a highly ranked landing page, there's nothing stopping you from getting a user to click on an internal link that takes them to a much more ad-filled page (which doesn't itself rank highly on Google).
I had no idea that's what it was for.
I was very surprised that was what the arrow is for. I never really paid any attention to the direction or its purpose.
I drove a loaner car today, and immediately knew which side to pull up to for gas from the arrow. Great unknown idea lol
I would love to see what your desired car interior would look like, with little plaques everywhere for "A/C", "Headlights", "Turn Signal", "Hazard Lights", etc.
I nearly drove of the road the other day trying to adjust the volume on the radio. It got stuck in some incomprehensible mode where the volume knob meant some other madness. I gave up and had to wait until I was stuck at a red light.
What's wrong with the labels "heat", "fan", "defroster"?
> I would love to see what your desired car interior would look like
It's not hard to find out. Look at the dash on an older car, before the Mac came out.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/25/99/be/2599...
The picture is a bit fuzzy, but the switches and knobs are clearly labeled with english words. Including words like "on" and "off". It's deadly to confuse pilots with what the latest trendy icon for "aileron trim" is.
This goes for other things too: home appliances, computer software, etc.
Do explain, though. It's a topic I rarely hear discussed.
I heard it mentioned on a radio show once but they said the side the tank filler was on corresponded to the nozzle on the pump icon - no mention of an arrow.
I still didn't notice an arrow until the time the nozzle on the icon actually didn't correspond to the filler tank.
Or because most cars historically haven't had it. I've only seen it in relatively recent cars (last 5 years maybe?) and even then not on all of them.
> I heard it mentioned on a radio show once but they said the side the tank filler was on corresponded to the nozzle on the pump icon - no mention of an arrow.
That one's not actually true, at least not consistently. Sometimes it works sometimes it does not so it's useless. The arrow, when present, is always correct.
As other people have said, not all cars have the arrow. My first car had it, so maybe that's why I was aware of it?
My 2010 F150 now has a baffling array of buttons and switches and extra levers hanging off the steering column. It's a crapshoot getting in a strange car and figuring out how the headlights and windshield wipers work in particular.
There's a classic Star Trek movie scene where helmsman Sulu is trying to fly a helicopter, I believe in the movie with the whales, and the helicopter stick controls do the car thing of randomly turning on windshield wipers and things.
Have you ever driven a three on the tree? Or where is reverse on my Renault Grand Scenic, with a 6sp manual and no markings on the shifter?
I remember being flagged down in a mall parking lot, and being asked why they couldn't shift into reverse (this shifter required being physically pushed down to move).
I had a GTI with the shifter lockout was broken (reverse all the way left and up, where 1st is..)
Whats three on the tree?
Still shifted fine. Unless you didn't get it all the way engaged and the gears would bounce instead of mesh and jam the transmission into 2nd and 3rd at the same time requiring you go get out, open the hood and give the control linkage a good yank before continuing.
Still miss that truck...
Anyways, it had a 3-speed column shifter, and the top linkage off the column would often pop out first thing in the morning. You could tell when it happened because it would just shift with no effort, but you wouldn't move. Then, you'd have to pop the hood and fiddle with it until you got the link reconnected.
I'm glad 3-speed column shifters are gone.
Saw it a fair bit on older sedans. I think the intent was to not have the shifter in the floor so you could get that big front bench seat.
When I got a ride from a friend long time ago, I was puzzled by how that operates. And, of course, there were two different W patterns manufactured at different times: one where R is top-left, and one where R is bottom-right (pictured above).
However, with modern Renault shifters you can't put it into reverse when you didn't intend to, because there's that ring that you lift before it goes to R.
She'd hit the clutch, shout the gear she wanted ("Second"), I'd change gear, she'd put the clutch in and on we'd go....
Using handbrake to assist hill start could be a problem, but not in Renault 4, where it might actually be more feasible for a passenger to operate the lever: https://pim.famnit.upr.si/blog/uploads/Interfaces/hand-brake...
However, in modern Renaults some models (Scenic) have an electric handbrake near the driver door, where the passenger possibly cannot reach it. The electric handbrake is a hill start assist as such, though. And it's one of those electric subsystems that can break, is necessary for the annual MOT check, and is very expensive to fix... (900 € for the part, plus cost of work).
I think my electric hand brake was 660€, but I've got a mechanic who's good at finding parts. But he still had to take it to the Renault dealer for programming.
And it relies on a 161€ clutch position sensor (which is different than the interlock for startup sensor)
Mechanically, Renaults seem pretty good. Electrically, I'm not so sure.
True, but in my car with a pretty slow first gear, on a steep hill you need to be pretty fast with the change from first to second.
The problem we did have was caused by a lack of clarity as to whose responsibility it was to keep an eye on the fuel gauge... :-)
Headlights, wipers, cruise control, trip indicator, window controls, A/C, radio -- all different on different cars.
Even the turn signals can vary. If I'm signalling left and want to turn it off, I expect to be able to cancel the signal by clicking the lever upwards, but I've driven cars where that causes it to signal right instead.
For example, you cite the steering wheel as intuitive and obvious. It's actually not: in many early cars, there was no steering wheel. They had a "tiller" instead (a lever that you pushed from side to side to steer). There was a huge debate at the time over whether tillers or steering wheels were better. Obviously, the steering wheel won out, but if you could transport some people from 1895 to today, they'll complain that tillers should have been used instead.
The gear shifter is another example. If you drive a stick, you probably take it for granted that the gearshift is a lever in the middle between the seats. It wasn't that long ago that some cars and trucks had "3 on the column": the gearshift (manual transmission) was on the steering column. And automatic transmission gearshifts on the column persisted much longer than that; I think it took until the 90s for them to finally die out.
Turn signals aren't that obvious either; you're just used to them. My mom got a ticket in 1965 because her boss gave her his car keys to drive his car somewhere nearby. She had never driven a car before, only ridden as a passenger, but of course didn't tell him this because it would look really bad. She managed driving it ok (steering, gas), probably because she had watched others do it, but she screwed up with the turn signals and signaled the wrong direction for a turn while a cop was looking.
Most "intuitive" things aren't intuitive at all; people are just used to them because they're more or less standardized, and people have gotten used to them or have watched other people use them and learned that way. Take some primitive person from the Amazon rainforest who's never even seen a car and stick him in one (on a closed track) and see how well he figures out how to operate it. If he can't figure it out very quickly with zero instruction, then it's not "intuitive".
Also the windshield wiper control was "opposite" of what I am accustomed to: down was pulse and up was constant. I got mad the first two times I wanted pulse but then realized it was better as my right hand is typically above the stalk on the steering wheel and it is much easier to simply swipe down than have to swipe down then up.
I'm used to it now but I can't tell you how many times I put the wipers on instead of indicating when I first got the car.
The car is a right-hand drive car (I'm in Australia) and a manual, so I actually think it's a bit stupid because both the gearstick and the indicator are on the left side of the steering wheel.
So it's not really possible to indicate while changing gears.
Perhaps that is part of the reason that people with European cars are so infamous for not indicating!
It sounds like your car cheaped out and kept the same control layout for both LHD and RHD versions. Having never driven in a LHD country, I have no idea what other car companies do about this.
Can any other LHD people with european cars comment? Are your indicators on the left side of the steering wheel also?
And forget about an air bag in there. Might as well put a bullet in there instead and finish off he driver before he impaled himself.
Speaking of intuitive, a tiller on a car is only intuitive if you've used it on a boat. Pushing the lever in the opposite direction of where you want to go is counter-intuitive.
But yeah, IIRC there has been research suggesting that cognitive load on aircraft pilots in old-fashioned aircraft (lots of separate switches and gauges) is lower than in modern aircraft with touchscreens.
Cars are getting worse as more things transition to touchscreens. As a driver, groping at a flat, featureless touchscreen to select something is far more difficult than trying to press a button.
Many are tempted to say "then don't operate the touchscreen when driving". But if e.g. air conditioning is controlled via touchscreen, you have little choice in case the windscreen becomes fogged while in traffic.
This probably doesn't happen where Tesla's engineering is located. The typical conditions are probably 100% humidity, then suddenly getting cold rain on the windshield.
Much of the time, though, the "commander" knob works well for controlling the system while driving. But once in a while, there's stuff that's just too annoying to do that way, like when trying to select an artist out of your large music library on the USB drive. If there's 100+ artists, and you're trying to pick one that doesn't start with 'A', it's much faster to use the touchscreen to select the first letter on the right side alphabet bar, then select the artist from there.
Also, entering in addresses on the nav system is impossible without using the touchscreen (you can only select favorites with the commander knob). So if you want to set an address while you're driving, you can't, without doing my hack above. Of course, it's probably not a good idea for you to enter an address or GPS coordinates while you're driving, but there's a second seat in the front row, next to you, which may have something called a "passenger" sitting in it, who can also easily reach the touchscreen. Preventing them from using the touchscreen when they're not even driving, and forcing the driver to find a place to pull over, is just asinine.
The Mazda3's HVAC system doesn't just have "good tactile buttons", it's entirely separate from the infotainment system. On the cheaper models, it's all mechanical, and on the more expensive models it's automatic, but either way it has no connection to the infotainment at all, it's all knobs and buttons just like it should be.
Doors maybe, but I often hear "how do you open the trunk?"
Some only open from the cabin, some have an obvious knob outside, some have a concealed knob below the registration plate, sometimes you press the company logo...
Citation: http://www.autotrader.com/car-news/new-backup-camera-rule-ca...
That said, I love the way they look, so I'm not complaining. I don't usually have passengers anyhow.
(And ffs pull the parking brake when you are parked. PERIOD)
I found myself rather confused by this when I noticed at a glance that my grandmother's car didn't seem to have anywhere to put fuel in it.
I always had Batman fantasies about that thing.
The position of the mechanism that you use to unlock it can also give you a clue, on those vehicles where there isn't any arrow.
See also: Christine (Stephen King)
Like the sister comment said, maybe it's vessels, because aviation news can be similar. I don't know why, but it's one of the last things untainted by politics and division.
But the vessel angle is interesting too.
I remember when my boss's 'Transit' van was raided for fuel during these high crime times, all the thieves had to do was pull a tube from under the bonnet. I don't think they even had to siphon anything and the filler cap made no difference.
Before this crime wave the idea of locking a petrol tank seemed a bit excessive, who would want to steal petrol, particularly if they had to siphon it and could get caught for stealing? Much more convenient (and affordable) to buy one's own. But then this crime wave of heroin addicts happened so common sense no longer mattered, things had to be zombie-proofed and the idea of an unlocked fuel filler cap now started to seem crazy. Who would invite the world to steal their petrol?
This crime wave also came at a time when people started being truly mobile for work, driving everywhere. No longer did you have the community of normal people walking the streets to make it difficult for thieves, we started to hide inside behind burglar alarms and CCTV. I preferred the former security model where everyone knew everyone else's movements and gossip with strangers duly noted, but such is progress. Note lead was in fuel back then too.
So in the UK it was the natively built Ford and Vauxhall models that were ripe for being raided and the hidden location of the fuel tank made matters worse. Fancier targets, e.g. BMW, would not get attacked even though they contained fuel too, it was the lock on the cap security plus the location that made the difference.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/waiting-and-par...
It's all to do with visibility. The rear light clusters have reflectors built in to them, the front light clusters do not.
Do people actually pay any attention to it?
Then I realized that it would make it near impossible to get a hose of any significant diameter into the tank.
I bet some Toyota engineer had to experiment for a while to come up with a solution which enabled the fuel to flow down the tube fast enough to avoid a diesel geysir - while still making siphoning impractical...
Well, considering how frequently Jaguar owners have to fill up, it seems only reasonable that the cars are optimised for the convenience of doing so.
When my self driving car shows up, I'll be damned if it's going to have to drive me to the gas station so that I can fill it up.
The filler is always on the opposite side of where the exhaust pipe is routed.
Granted, this doesn't help if you have dual tailpipes (though usually the pipe is y-split just before the output), or if you have dual straight-pipes (I don't believe any production vehicles have this as an option - it is usually an aftermarket performance mod).
But ultimately - the explanation was with the filler opposite that of the exhaust pipe, you decrease the issue of the heat from the pipe, or leaks from the filler, becoming a dangerous combination.
That said - now that I think about it (I guess I'll need to crawl back under), my Isuzu VehiCROSS has the exhaust running down the passenger side, and the filler is on that same side. However, the exhaust is routed out the left (driver) side - I'm not sure how the filler pipe and everything else fits in there.
Knowing the VX, though - given its "odd-duck" and somewhat hand-built "custom" status in the car world (rumor has it that with so few built, an assembly line wasn't created for them, and they were all hand assembled; it's known that a ton of parts for them are the same between the VX and Rodeo/Trooper/Hombre) - there's a good chance the routing isn't "optimal" (I just had a custom heat shield made to fit between the exhaust and a connector for the TOD module - owners have had it melt and water intrude into the connector - burning it and sometimes the module out - and given that they aren't exactly easy to obtain...well, I wanted to protect it from that possibility).
The problem would be quickly and cheaply resolved as a result.
Related: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
I'd report on the hoses here in Norway, but honestly I haven't driven since I moved here a few years back.
A similar number of cars with LHS/RHS filler caps would make for some nice load balancing at the pumps, but the problem is that most European and American manufacturers put it on the right side, regardless of vehicle model. Japanese cars sold in the US and Europe mostly have it on the left because the cars were originally designed for LHT and the engineers didn't bother to switch it. Many Nissans also have the dials of the dashboard in the center in order to cut some expenditure in producing LHT/RHT cars.
My filler cap is on the left (Toyota Land Cruiser); my wife cannot remember which side the cap is on, but she DOES remember that she can spot the lid using the mirrors, so we're both happy.
Well, it will be helpful once I am legal to drive. Both my spouse and I forgot about my driving - he didn't own a car when I moved (we own a cheap one now). Quite unfortunate, considering the cost of driving classes, but probably a plus considering winter driving seems a slightly different beast comparatively..
Any driving school will be happy to give winter driving lessons even if you have a valid licence, by the way - and no, no matter what shenanigans you pull during the lesson, they cannot have your licence revoked.
So, if your spouse isn't too comfortable driving on the icy stuff[0], just get in touch with a driving school (preferably in winter, though we do have dedicated tracks with artificial cooling here and there - nothing like skidding around on half an inch of ice in July...)
[0] Here's me assuming he's !Norwegian, too...
He's Norwegian, and very comfortable. The differences on his caution and mine is striking. He drives faster than I would, in mountains, with little to no sliding. Average "snow speeds" are faster here, but I'm sure some of that is because folks use snow tires instead of the "all weather" tires folks used in the states. But to be fair, I'm actually luckier than immigrants having no practical experience with snow and cold and I'm sure most of my previous caution will transfer over nicely.
Honestly, simply spending a few hours in an empty parking lot did more for whatever winter driving skills I may have picked up than any formal driving lesson did. There's a lot to be said for trying to maneuver the car and failing miserably to do so - repeatedly - without hitting anything. Most educational. (And fun! Just don't get too carried away, or the police will chew on you + spouse for reckless driving if they are bored.)
Proper winter tires helps a lot. As does a gentle right foot and slow, smooth operation of the steering wheel (And if you really want to go native - studded tires and 4x4)
(Not that I expect this to be news to you; I'm just making small talk, as it were. :))
(Or have outdated/non standard equipment)
There is a UI problem for EV in that we're culturally programmed to get our energy from 80s style chrome and plastic R2D2 sized monoliths that plug into the side of our vehicles, whereas technologically theres no reason an overhead retractable cord or ground mounted cord couldn't work as well or better.
Speaking of which, do electric vehicles even have a hood?
Charging cables are more flexible than gasoline hoses, so they're easier to manage. They tend to be pretty long, so you don't usually have to park any particular way. If the charger is on the wrong side, you can easily plug in anyway.
An exception to this is Tesla Superchargers, where the cable is just barely long enough to reach the charge port when you park the way you're intended to. But since all Supercharger-capable vehicles have the charge port in the same location, it's not an issue.
Regarding the original comment's proposal to standardize this stuff, I can only imagine that California would mandate it on one side, New York would mandate it on the other side, and then we'd be even more doomed than we are already.
It's not that US is "safer" than EU or vice-versa, it's that the standards are different.
EDIT: http://jalopnik.com/a-simple-explanation-why-america-doesnt-...
Lots of people do though, and many petrol stations have big signs to try to educate people that the hose will reach if your filler cap is on the other side of the car.
Of course, if you're driving a big van that's not going to work out (and lorries have their own pumps and their own problems), but most cars is fine.
I've done it myself a couple of times in foreign countries where there are only 1 or 2 pumps, never had to do it in my own country.
You're not bound by the orientation of the pump. Just point your car the other way.
I think I'm back to not caring.
Traditional luxury brands have the filler on the right because rich people use full-service gas stations, and traditional budget brands have it on the left because poor people use self-service gas stations.
But it isn't, you have the curb and pumps that prevent you from fully opening the door.
>the mess & stink away from the driver
Not really
Not sure this is true. Anecdotal observation of any gas station where I live has damn near every vehicle with the tank on the left side, regardless of make or model. All of my vehicles (the Japanese brands as well as the American brands) have always had the tank on the left/driver's side.
I have a Mazda so I've got a driver side gas door. Personally I like it as I just step out, swipe my card, plug in the line and wait. No walking around the car necessary.
It seems to me driver side is for gas station convenience, passenger side is for road-side safety. Both are fairly minor conveniences so it seems manufacturers just pick a side and stick to it.
I try to park pretty close to the pump. With the filler on the same side as the driver door I have to be careful not to bang the door into the structure around the pump. That's much easier when it is on the other side.
I don't care at all to walk around the car to pump the petrol.
After driving German cars for some years it was a disadvantage of my new Japanese car for me.
But I've never filled my car on the side of a road, so this argument didn't work for me at all.
How many times have you run out of gas where the reason was not "I'll skip this station and hit the next one since I still have 1/8th of a tank"?
Unfortunately I ended up learning this lesson twice because I'm a dummy who needs to test boundaries. But at least I had the jerry can from the first time on the second occasion.
What makes no sense is that EVs don't have a standard charge progress/completion signaling pattern.
> So the truth is, nobody really has any idea. Once the cheapest, most convenient solution, the middle, was made illegal, everything became a nightmare of relativism and equally rational justifications. Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages, and we’re left, wandering, alone, confused.
I'm also against these sort of "click saving" summaries. What's next? Two star-crossed lovers commit suicide, someone climbs mountain and makes it down ok ... Sometimes the journey or narrative is interesting even if the outcome is not extraordinary.
I like to think double suicides are extraordinary no matter how they occurred. And frankly, I think it's pretty unlikely that anyone would bother to tell the "someone climbs a mountain and makes it down ok" story unless the odds of not making it down were good enough to make the story interesting. There are plenty of stories consisting mostly or entirely of dialogue in banal surroundings, but those are usually set "at home" or similar.
Don't know about the habits of US cars.
I imagine this is mainly a difference in locale.
We don't have self service here neither.
The "arrangement" there is, exists entirely by chance.
We're talking about a 70s beater pickup truck modified as only a 80s/90s teenager has spare time to modify, so I have no idea if this was normal for construction grade trucks or not.
The theory is he could operate his gas powered generator/welder or gas powered air compressor off one tank at a job site, and even if he ran it dry he could drive home on the other tank. There was also some manner of fuel transfer pump(s).
And then you forget to fill both and you are stranded... :-D
When it ran out of gas, you had to switch a foot pedal to the emergency tank, then you had maybe 10km to get to a Petrol Station before you were stranded.
Filling up both tanks kind of sucked, back when gas was $3.50-4.00/gallon.
We should just go back to the 70s-era centre-mounted fillers behind the license plate holder. Those were great, until you got rear ended or it was frozen solid.
Drivers side is more convenient, but passengers side is safer if you every have to fill a car up by hand on the side of the road