Automotive Blog

I’ve never done it, but I do admit to having had panicked moments of thinking, “Oh ^&)@&, this is a gas pump, right?” Now, I hope it goes to say that putting the incorrect fuel in your tank is not that great on your engine. (Read “disaster.”) At least across the pond in England, Ford is going to take drivers by the hand and make sure that doesn’t happen courtesy of their newly introduced Easy Fuel System. In Great Britain different sized nozzles are used for gas and diesel and the Easy Fuel System won’t accept the wrong nozzle. Hardly rocket science, but if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty good idea.

“Fuel” used to just be gas and diesel but now we’re throwing ethanol, biodiesel, and potentially hydrogen in the mix (if fuel cell vehicles ever gain any wide acceptance). And of course this raises my biggest problem with alternative fuels. I don’t get how in the heck these things are ever going to become common place until the fueling infrastructure is in place. And very likely safeguards to prevent inappropriate fueling will have to be part of that infrastructure.

Posted on November 13th, 2007 by Shorty
Filed under: alternative fuels |

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