You can do a while lifetimes work, and yet sometimes it's a tiny action like this which can have the biggest benefit to mankind.
Just think how many billions of times someone has avoided pulling up to the wrong side of the pump because of this arrow - literal lifetimes of effort saved.
The person (committee?) who came up with USB A needs sanctions.
And Apple Needs more, for putting power buttons and key ports at that back.
No the people who decided that usb 3.2 gen 2x2 and usb 4 version 2.0 gen 4x2 were acceptable names are the ones who should be sanctioned
I still don't know by memory whether USB full-speed or USB high-speed is faster. Boy, tech people just can't name things.
Hey, when we said naming things was one of the hardest problems in computer science, we were right!
whats wrong with usb-a? I feels more sturdy and less likely to have connection issues then usb-c in my experience.
> whats wrong with usb-a?
Which way up it should go.
Simple. The third way you try, always.
PS/2, which USB all but replaced, solved this by visually keying one side of the connector as flat.
Where the logo is.
And when the port is vertical and you can’t see it?
I’m surprised how tolerable people seemed to find Apples rear ports.
[deleted]
The other way
No, the other other way.
It's almost impressive that they designed a port that feels so wrong when you actually get it right
I worked in an IT department at one time and encountered USB-A plugs forced into Ethernet ports.
It seems so unlikely that I’ve just searched it to see if it’s possible, but am getting no hits.
It's very weird that USB-C solved the problem of "we can't tell which way to insert the plug" by mandating that both orientations should work, as opposed to just making the exterior of the plug as asymmetrical as the interior.
I don't find it weird. Not even having to work out a correct orientation is a great convenience. The micro-USB connection (or is it "min"?), which I need to fiddle with to charge some older gadgets, is a testament to how annoying an "asymetric exterior" plug can still be.
With micro USB you end up with damaged plugs and ports in my experience.
You mean something like HDMI? If you’ve ever tried to plug one of those into the back of a TV, you’ll know it’s still pretty difficult to get it the right way up.
Less weird as they get smaller. Call it an accessibility thing if you like, but I think it's better for everyone and congrats to them. Isn't this what technology is supposed to do, make things easier?
Which rear facing "key port" on a Mac are you suggesting should be on the front?
> Which rear facing "key port" on a Mac are you suggesting should be on the front?
USB.
I used iMacs, mini and pro machines. Any ports in the front would be nice.
My m4 mini does have some front ports. It’s less of an issue now with usb-c but the iMac presumably still rear mounts them.
2020s UX "experts" would bury the entire instrument cluster under a hamburger menu if they could get away with it.
The fuel gauge would be moved three menus deep and thus impossible to find, then removed in subsequent model years when their telemetry data "proved" no one used it anymore.
In the end, these engineers' job is make profit for the company. If the customer allows for all this crap, and still buys cars/fridges/tvs with such horrible UX, then it's the way forward.
>If the customer allows for all this crap
You imply they ever had a choice.
Companies like Tesla and Rivian pioneered the trend of bringing webshit-as-an-instrument cluster to the mainstream. Other car companies saw dollar signs, rode their coattails and immediately copied it.
What is a customer supposed to do? Buy a Mitsubishi Mirage? Build their own instrument cluster?
Most of the instrument cluster is superfluous. My 81 Vanagon has only these and it's fine:
Speedometer (which starts at 10 mph and I've managed to adjust so it's about right at 40ish but reports 70 mph when you're doing 60), odometer (5.1 digits), fuel gauge (non-linear, but consistent, the top half is a lot bigger than the bottom half). And then some lights: brake warning lamp (but the bulb is burnt out and doesn't seem replacable), high beam indicator, alternator indicator, turn signal indicator (one led for both directions!), low oil pressure indicator, and EGR indicator which really just turns on 10,000 miles after you push the button on the box under the front of the car.
Don't even need a tach, cause they put one dot on the speedo where you should shift out of first, two dots where you should shift out of second, and three dots where you should shift out of third.
The gauge lights come on when the headlights are on, so that's a subtle indicator too, I guess.
Don't really need much more than that. There was an optional clock in my model year, but mine doesn't have one.
BMW would put it behind a subscription
It drives usage up! Seriously, I wonder whether this “Make things to annoy people” trend is a normal situation, or an emerging behavior due to our era, and whether it will be solved one day. Example: In 2003 all UX was abominable, programs were ugly and black and white and text and boring, then came the iPhone with the idea to hire designers for apps, it was entirely new and absolutely unseen before. It was necessary during the take off phase of our industry, but are we simply witnessing the regression to normal, with UX being driven by corporate suits?
Which is great for new cars. I drove a 78 Buick Riviera. Friends couldn’t figure out how to fill it up. Because the gas cap was behind the license plate in the back!
Why didn't they just ask ChatGPT?
Oh wait.
For those curious, the first sentence of the response from ChatGPT gets it correct.
>On a 1978 Buick Riviera, the gas cap is hidden behind a flip-down license plate on the rear bumper.
That's not what I received from ChatGPT. This is:
The fuel filler door is on the left side (driver’s side) of the vehicle. Therefore, the little arrow on the dash fuel gauge should point to the left to indicate that.
(Most Buick Rivieras of that era had the fuel filler on the driver’s side, though official Buick manuals or build sheets from 1978 confirm this location.)
On cars without the arrow they often follow the convention where the gas filler handle is depicted on the same side of the gas icon as the filler door is in the car.
That was the original idea on how the icon should be used but obviously too subtle.
Moylan basically added a modifier icon for clarity.
I've heard that the gauge always points towards the side the cap is on when pointing to empty
[deleted]
Far too subtle
First time I've heard of that convention.
[deleted]
Is the side to fill up evenly balanced between cars in average? I imagine there is value to make it close to 50/50 to simplify the logistics at the gas station. I was thinking car manufacturers perhaps had agreed so that some brands do it one way and some do it another
No the filler placement is sort of a cultural or historical thing.
Usually European cars have filler on the passenger side while American and Japanese put them on the driver side.
Afaik passenger side fillers are more safe if you run out of gas and need to fill up from a canister at the side of the road.
While driver side fillers are more comfortable because you don't have to walk as far to get there.
Even if there was a single side for filling, direction of approach being random is enough for 50/50 utilization of the pumps — so I’m not convinced there’s a pressure to spread which side the tank is on.
> direction of approach being random
is this specific to a country? I'm not sure I've ever seen a petrol station that wasn't one-way
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one that was one-way; but my experience is limited to US, MY, TH, and VN.
In those four at least, traffic can come from either direction so you can have left-handed fills use both sides of a pump.
Anybody else get confused by whether the arrow represents where the car should be or the pump?
No
I think this is the source of me misinterpreting the symbol a few times, so yes.
Isnt it that nowadays usually on the side of the driving seat? Or does this apply only to EU vehicles?
Im not a regular car user, if at all Im renting - but the last 10 times(?) it was always just on the side of the driving seat
Isnt it that nowadays usually on the side of the driving seat? Or does this apply only to EU vehicles?
That would mean designing two separate entire fuel tank placements, fuel lines, etc for cars that are available both in left- and right-hand drive variants, with different SKUs for each of the parts needed. There is no way a car manufacturer would do that.
Im not aware of such a convention, I'm in the EU and most cars I've owned or driven has it on the opposite side of the driving seat.
Might just be a coincidence
It’s a coincidence because the UK uses the same cars and ours are mostly on the same side (because we’re right hand drive where you’re left hand drive).
I think it depends. Especially with PHEVs, which also have a charge port, whose location is determined by charging infrastructure, and which is not IME on the same side as the gas tank opening.
I do. It is not obvious in any case
[deleted]
I agree. As much as people appreciate the factoid, it's not an example of good design.
I don't ever recall the arrow being paid attention to until listicles and other blog spam were born. It has all the elements of great clickbait.
I actually use it all the time when driving a rental.
I use it all the time because I switch between a lot of different cars a lot, and my memory is not that great.
That isn’t in conflict with it being bad design.
I use it regularly
It’s terrible design. Until I encountered one of these listicles I had no idea what that arrow was.
I prefer the pump that is on the side of the petrol cap, but filling up from either side absolutely works for me in the uk, there isn't a "wrong side"
One side is "wronger" when driving an unnecessarily large land yacht. My Civic, it's fine.
I had no idea till this moment that’s what the arrow was for…
I didn’t know it was possible to not know this.
Nobody ever told me and I drove my first car for a long time, rarely drove other people’s cars, and did not have the kind of lifestyle that either supported or required rental cars.
I found out around age 35, I think. From reading it online. I’ve told a bunch of people who didn’t know.
Who taught you? I didn't know until my 20s and have met many adults who didn't know.
I've encountered a few cars where the arrow points to the wrong side, and it's quite subtle if no one tells you.
I'm sure about 99% of people are in the same boat.
The signage is for cars, not boats.
I'm from the UK and had honestly not heard of the arrow.
I've checked my Toyota Yaris, and it's there!
I was like 20 when I learned about this trick. Before then I'd only driven a few vehicles, and I just knew which side of the car the gas tank opening was on. A friend mentioned it when we were going to fill up a car a borrowed car and I asked which side it was on.
I've since met many adults who were unaware of this trick. It's like the real-world analog of an insufficiently discoverable UI functionality.
Wow! I just used this a few days ago when I rented a U-Haul van. Such a great user interface element.
It's a convenient little invention but "the fact that there wasn't a simple way to know which side of a vehicle the gas tank was located on" is not quite true.
Usually, if the vehicle is of Japanese or British origin, the cap is on the left, otherwise it is on the right.
Source: I’ve driven dozens of different vehicle models all over Europe for decades. This rule always worked well enough for me.
Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?
And which side is the driver side? Surprise, it depends on the country. And a Japanese car manufacturer will move the driver controls to sell cars in USA/Continental Europe, but flipping everything else will cost more.
I've driven 2 models of an Italian brand, my previous car had the gas tank on the passenger side, and my current one has it on the driver side. I do wonder why they changed it.
There's also the issue of pulling to a small road side petrol station, having the fuel door on the passenger side means you don't have to be standing next to the busy road while refuelling.
I live in the UK (drive on the left) and my Honda had it on the passenger side while my VW has it on the driver's side.
> I do wonder why they changed it.
Depending on model years, it could have something to do with Fiat merging with Chrysler in 2014. European brands usually have them on the passenger's side, while US brands have them on the driver's side. Maybe that new Fiat was designed in the US.
As it should be. If the Globalist cabal had their way, everyone would drive on the same side of the road (like mindless assembly line workers) and traffic signs would be completely standardized, and - yes - the fuel filler would be on the same side of every car (welcome to a monotonous Communist dystopia). They already came for Sweden ('Dagen H' Plan. Do your own research) /s
safest place is put it opposite of drivers side, because if you're out of gas on the side of the road and filling it up, you won't be standing right next to freeway traffic. Saab started this.
A linked article agrees:
"... many European cars have the fuel door located on the passenger side, while many Japanese and American vehicles have the fuel door on the driver side. Both techniques have valid reasons. European automakers place the fuel filler on the passenger side for the sake of safety when a vehicle has run out of fuel and has pulled off onto the shoulder of the road to fill up from a canister. Meanwhile, American OEMs tend to place the fuel door on the driver side of the vehicle for convenience reasons, so that a driver doesn't have to walk around the vehicle when filling up at a gas station."[0]
Brings to mind the Dead Kennedys album name, "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death"
thank you, didnt know that, although Im in EU :-))
Is that actually safer? Both you and drivers lose visibility which in my mind makes it more dangerous.
What happens when they sell the car in a country that drives on the other side of the road? They would have to move everything around.
They could design the fuel tank to be symmetrical about the axis parallel to the car’s axels. This would let it be flipped during installation at the factory to have the refueling port facing either side. Then the only difference would be the body panel and little door that covers the gas cap.
Many (mostly European and North American) manufacturers can’t even be bothered flipping the indicator and light controls around, there’s no way they’d flip the whole fuel tank.
They could but there are downstream packaging compromises that would cause. It is easier to design the vehicle without imposing that design constraint on yourself
They don’t. It stays on the same side as it was. They don’t move the bonnet opening lever or the indicator stalk either.
My plug-in hybrid (Audi Q5) has the electric connector on the rear left (driver’s side) and the gasoline inlet on the rear right. I sure plug in way more than fill up.
The fuel side indicator is quite helpful to me.
Funny, my PHEV had it on the opposite side. Did you find it difficult to charge at stations, which are often designed for front-left or rear-right charge ports?
[deleted]
My Dad explained to me what this symbol meant when I got my first car. We went to get gas, and I had no idea that I pulled up on the wrong side of the pump. He indicated that the symbol told you which side of the car the gas tank was on.
It was a 1994 Ford Taurus.
That's funny, I know someone that's fairly famous in the product development world that claimed to be the inventor of the gas pump arrow. Weird thing to lie about.
Nobody getting gas at Costco cares.
Most people do, with the exception of the woman awkwardly stretching the long hose over the roof of her minivan, scratching it in the process.
What a letter. Clear, concise, just chef's kiss. I love that little indicator.
I only knew it because someone talked about that. Very useful. RIP.
I use his arrow all the time. I'm also a Ford Truck Fan. RIP James.
You can do a while lifetimes work, and yet sometimes it's a tiny action like this which can have the biggest benefit to mankind.
Just think how many billions of times someone has avoided pulling up to the wrong side of the pump because of this arrow - literal lifetimes of effort saved.
The person (committee?) who came up with USB A needs sanctions.
And Apple Needs more, for putting power buttons and key ports at that back.
No the people who decided that usb 3.2 gen 2x2 and usb 4 version 2.0 gen 4x2 were acceptable names are the ones who should be sanctioned
I still don't know by memory whether USB full-speed or USB high-speed is faster. Boy, tech people just can't name things.
Hey, when we said naming things was one of the hardest problems in computer science, we were right!
whats wrong with usb-a? I feels more sturdy and less likely to have connection issues then usb-c in my experience.
> whats wrong with usb-a?
Which way up it should go.
Simple. The third way you try, always.
PS/2, which USB all but replaced, solved this by visually keying one side of the connector as flat.
Where the logo is.
And when the port is vertical and you can’t see it?
I’m surprised how tolerable people seemed to find Apples rear ports.
The other way
No, the other other way.
It's almost impressive that they designed a port that feels so wrong when you actually get it right
I worked in an IT department at one time and encountered USB-A plugs forced into Ethernet ports.
It seems so unlikely that I’ve just searched it to see if it’s possible, but am getting no hits.
It's very weird that USB-C solved the problem of "we can't tell which way to insert the plug" by mandating that both orientations should work, as opposed to just making the exterior of the plug as asymmetrical as the interior.
I don't find it weird. Not even having to work out a correct orientation is a great convenience. The micro-USB connection (or is it "min"?), which I need to fiddle with to charge some older gadgets, is a testament to how annoying an "asymetric exterior" plug can still be.
With micro USB you end up with damaged plugs and ports in my experience.
You mean something like HDMI? If you’ve ever tried to plug one of those into the back of a TV, you’ll know it’s still pretty difficult to get it the right way up.
Less weird as they get smaller. Call it an accessibility thing if you like, but I think it's better for everyone and congrats to them. Isn't this what technology is supposed to do, make things easier?
Which rear facing "key port" on a Mac are you suggesting should be on the front?
> Which rear facing "key port" on a Mac are you suggesting should be on the front?
USB.
I used iMacs, mini and pro machines. Any ports in the front would be nice.
My m4 mini does have some front ports. It’s less of an issue now with usb-c but the iMac presumably still rear mounts them.
2020s UX "experts" would bury the entire instrument cluster under a hamburger menu if they could get away with it.
The fuel gauge would be moved three menus deep and thus impossible to find, then removed in subsequent model years when their telemetry data "proved" no one used it anymore.
In the end, these engineers' job is make profit for the company. If the customer allows for all this crap, and still buys cars/fridges/tvs with such horrible UX, then it's the way forward.
>If the customer allows for all this crap
You imply they ever had a choice.
Companies like Tesla and Rivian pioneered the trend of bringing webshit-as-an-instrument cluster to the mainstream. Other car companies saw dollar signs, rode their coattails and immediately copied it.
What is a customer supposed to do? Buy a Mitsubishi Mirage? Build their own instrument cluster?
Most of the instrument cluster is superfluous. My 81 Vanagon has only these and it's fine:
Speedometer (which starts at 10 mph and I've managed to adjust so it's about right at 40ish but reports 70 mph when you're doing 60), odometer (5.1 digits), fuel gauge (non-linear, but consistent, the top half is a lot bigger than the bottom half). And then some lights: brake warning lamp (but the bulb is burnt out and doesn't seem replacable), high beam indicator, alternator indicator, turn signal indicator (one led for both directions!), low oil pressure indicator, and EGR indicator which really just turns on 10,000 miles after you push the button on the box under the front of the car.
Don't even need a tach, cause they put one dot on the speedo where you should shift out of first, two dots where you should shift out of second, and three dots where you should shift out of third.
The gauge lights come on when the headlights are on, so that's a subtle indicator too, I guess.
Don't really need much more than that. There was an optional clock in my model year, but mine doesn't have one.
BMW would put it behind a subscription
It drives usage up! Seriously, I wonder whether this “Make things to annoy people” trend is a normal situation, or an emerging behavior due to our era, and whether it will be solved one day. Example: In 2003 all UX was abominable, programs were ugly and black and white and text and boring, then came the iPhone with the idea to hire designers for apps, it was entirely new and absolutely unseen before. It was necessary during the take off phase of our industry, but are we simply witnessing the regression to normal, with UX being driven by corporate suits?
Which is great for new cars. I drove a 78 Buick Riviera. Friends couldn’t figure out how to fill it up. Because the gas cap was behind the license plate in the back!
Why didn't they just ask ChatGPT?
Oh wait.
For those curious, the first sentence of the response from ChatGPT gets it correct.
>On a 1978 Buick Riviera, the gas cap is hidden behind a flip-down license plate on the rear bumper.
That's not what I received from ChatGPT. This is:
The fuel filler door is on the left side (driver’s side) of the vehicle. Therefore, the little arrow on the dash fuel gauge should point to the left to indicate that.
(Most Buick Rivieras of that era had the fuel filler on the driver’s side, though official Buick manuals or build sheets from 1978 confirm this location.)
On cars without the arrow they often follow the convention where the gas filler handle is depicted on the same side of the gas icon as the filler door is in the car.
That was the original idea on how the icon should be used but obviously too subtle.
Moylan basically added a modifier icon for clarity.
I've heard that the gauge always points towards the side the cap is on when pointing to empty
Far too subtle
First time I've heard of that convention.
Is the side to fill up evenly balanced between cars in average? I imagine there is value to make it close to 50/50 to simplify the logistics at the gas station. I was thinking car manufacturers perhaps had agreed so that some brands do it one way and some do it another
No the filler placement is sort of a cultural or historical thing.
Usually European cars have filler on the passenger side while American and Japanese put them on the driver side.
Afaik passenger side fillers are more safe if you run out of gas and need to fill up from a canister at the side of the road.
While driver side fillers are more comfortable because you don't have to walk as far to get there.
Even if there was a single side for filling, direction of approach being random is enough for 50/50 utilization of the pumps — so I’m not convinced there’s a pressure to spread which side the tank is on.
> direction of approach being random
is this specific to a country? I'm not sure I've ever seen a petrol station that wasn't one-way
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one that was one-way; but my experience is limited to US, MY, TH, and VN.
In those four at least, traffic can come from either direction so you can have left-handed fills use both sides of a pump.
Anybody else get confused by whether the arrow represents where the car should be or the pump?
No
I think this is the source of me misinterpreting the symbol a few times, so yes.
Isnt it that nowadays usually on the side of the driving seat? Or does this apply only to EU vehicles?
Im not a regular car user, if at all Im renting - but the last 10 times(?) it was always just on the side of the driving seat
Isnt it that nowadays usually on the side of the driving seat? Or does this apply only to EU vehicles?
That would mean designing two separate entire fuel tank placements, fuel lines, etc for cars that are available both in left- and right-hand drive variants, with different SKUs for each of the parts needed. There is no way a car manufacturer would do that.
Im not aware of such a convention, I'm in the EU and most cars I've owned or driven has it on the opposite side of the driving seat.
Might just be a coincidence
It’s a coincidence because the UK uses the same cars and ours are mostly on the same side (because we’re right hand drive where you’re left hand drive).
I think it depends. Especially with PHEVs, which also have a charge port, whose location is determined by charging infrastructure, and which is not IME on the same side as the gas tank opening.
I do. It is not obvious in any case
I agree. As much as people appreciate the factoid, it's not an example of good design.
I don't ever recall the arrow being paid attention to until listicles and other blog spam were born. It has all the elements of great clickbait.
I actually use it all the time when driving a rental.
I use it all the time because I switch between a lot of different cars a lot, and my memory is not that great.
That isn’t in conflict with it being bad design.
I use it regularly
It’s terrible design. Until I encountered one of these listicles I had no idea what that arrow was.
I prefer the pump that is on the side of the petrol cap, but filling up from either side absolutely works for me in the uk, there isn't a "wrong side"
One side is "wronger" when driving an unnecessarily large land yacht. My Civic, it's fine.
I had no idea till this moment that’s what the arrow was for…
I didn’t know it was possible to not know this.
Nobody ever told me and I drove my first car for a long time, rarely drove other people’s cars, and did not have the kind of lifestyle that either supported or required rental cars.
I found out around age 35, I think. From reading it online. I’ve told a bunch of people who didn’t know.
Who taught you? I didn't know until my 20s and have met many adults who didn't know.
I've encountered a few cars where the arrow points to the wrong side, and it's quite subtle if no one tells you.
I'm sure about 99% of people are in the same boat.
The signage is for cars, not boats.
I'm from the UK and had honestly not heard of the arrow.
I've checked my Toyota Yaris, and it's there!
I was like 20 when I learned about this trick. Before then I'd only driven a few vehicles, and I just knew which side of the car the gas tank opening was on. A friend mentioned it when we were going to fill up a car a borrowed car and I asked which side it was on.
I've since met many adults who were unaware of this trick. It's like the real-world analog of an insufficiently discoverable UI functionality.
“Moylan arrow”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_gauge#Moylan_arrow
https://www.vermeulenfh.com/obituaries/james-moylan-2/#!/Obi...
Another car thing that is named after someone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroney_sticker
Also known as the "Window Sticker"
Mansfield bars too, if you don’t mind getting ghoulish
I have never heard of that name before, and had to do a search. In case anyone else wants info too:
https://www.getgordon.com/faqs/what-is-mansfield-bar/
Sorry that was thoughtless of me to not provide a link
One of the many patron saints of engineers!
If he so believed in it, may his arrow be pointing up! :)
Who knew? I always thought this was a UX lore, and it was subsequently debunked.
One of my previous cars didn't have the signaling arrow and I missed it instantly. Such a subtle great idea.
A couple of other links:
https://archive.ph/pluwT
https://www.jalopnik.com/2061179/inventor-little-arrow-what-...
Wow! I just used this a few days ago when I rented a U-Haul van. Such a great user interface element.
It's a convenient little invention but "the fact that there wasn't a simple way to know which side of a vehicle the gas tank was located on" is not quite true.
Usually, if the vehicle is of Japanese or British origin, the cap is on the left, otherwise it is on the right.
Source: I’ve driven dozens of different vehicle models all over Europe for decades. This rule always worked well enough for me.
Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?
And which side is the driver side? Surprise, it depends on the country. And a Japanese car manufacturer will move the driver controls to sell cars in USA/Continental Europe, but flipping everything else will cost more.
I've driven 2 models of an Italian brand, my previous car had the gas tank on the passenger side, and my current one has it on the driver side. I do wonder why they changed it.
There's also the issue of pulling to a small road side petrol station, having the fuel door on the passenger side means you don't have to be standing next to the busy road while refuelling.
I live in the UK (drive on the left) and my Honda had it on the passenger side while my VW has it on the driver's side.
> I do wonder why they changed it.
Depending on model years, it could have something to do with Fiat merging with Chrysler in 2014. European brands usually have them on the passenger's side, while US brands have them on the driver's side. Maybe that new Fiat was designed in the US.
As it should be. If the Globalist cabal had their way, everyone would drive on the same side of the road (like mindless assembly line workers) and traffic signs would be completely standardized, and - yes - the fuel filler would be on the same side of every car (welcome to a monotonous Communist dystopia). They already came for Sweden ('Dagen H' Plan. Do your own research) /s
safest place is put it opposite of drivers side, because if you're out of gas on the side of the road and filling it up, you won't be standing right next to freeway traffic. Saab started this.
A linked article agrees:
Brings to mind the Dead Kennedys album name, "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death"[0] https://fordauthority.com/2020/08/ford-designer-credited-for...
thank you, didnt know that, although Im in EU :-))
Is that actually safer? Both you and drivers lose visibility which in my mind makes it more dangerous.
What happens when they sell the car in a country that drives on the other side of the road? They would have to move everything around.
They could design the fuel tank to be symmetrical about the axis parallel to the car’s axels. This would let it be flipped during installation at the factory to have the refueling port facing either side. Then the only difference would be the body panel and little door that covers the gas cap.
Many (mostly European and North American) manufacturers can’t even be bothered flipping the indicator and light controls around, there’s no way they’d flip the whole fuel tank.
They could but there are downstream packaging compromises that would cause. It is easier to design the vehicle without imposing that design constraint on yourself
They don’t. It stays on the same side as it was. They don’t move the bonnet opening lever or the indicator stalk either.
My plug-in hybrid (Audi Q5) has the electric connector on the rear left (driver’s side) and the gasoline inlet on the rear right. I sure plug in way more than fill up.
The fuel side indicator is quite helpful to me.
Funny, my PHEV had it on the opposite side. Did you find it difficult to charge at stations, which are often designed for front-left or rear-right charge ports?
My Dad explained to me what this symbol meant when I got my first car. We went to get gas, and I had no idea that I pulled up on the wrong side of the pump. He indicated that the symbol told you which side of the car the gas tank was on.
It was a 1994 Ford Taurus.
That's funny, I know someone that's fairly famous in the product development world that claimed to be the inventor of the gas pump arrow. Weird thing to lie about.
Nobody getting gas at Costco cares.
Most people do, with the exception of the woman awkwardly stretching the long hose over the roof of her minivan, scratching it in the process.
What a letter. Clear, concise, just chef's kiss. I love that little indicator.
I only knew it because someone talked about that. Very useful. RIP.
I use his arrow all the time. I'm also a Ford Truck Fan. RIP James.