Seriously? The Gas Cap Has A Real Unmodifiable Reason To Be On The Wrong Side?

[JCar]

There were 196,165,666 licensed drivers in the US in 2004. Assuming each driver gasses up their car once per week (many do more often than that) and there were 2,510 gas station vehicle fires. Of those fires, 48 people were injured and 2 died.

Your odds of being injured in a gas station fire are 1 in 1.7 to the 9th power. Your odds of dying in a gas station fire are 1 in 1.96 to the 10th power.

By comparison, you have a 1 in 1.4 to the 7th power chance of being killed by lightning.

In other words, there is no safety issue, there's only the question of convenience.

Yes, though too many people still idle their engines at the pump despite warning signs. General gratuitous idling is wasting too much fuel in Glutmerica. If the Elio could have an engine stop/start feature (like some current gas-only cars) I'd pay extra. If often do that manually during predictable waits for construction or fast food lines.

 

[JCar]

With the filler on the right side, no worries about slamming the door into a concrete safety post next to the pump, especially if it's windy.
It can also be a deterrent for people getting in/out while filling (at least in left-side-drive vehicles), which can generate static electricity that could potentially ignite the fumes around the fill tube. Yeah, it's a stretch, but that's what they claim.

How would a single occupant pull that off for self-serve in any car?

You all have correctly imagined that the gas cap on the side it is on is safer when filling it when you run out of gas on the road. However the example of pulling your wife from a burning car is unthinkable for me. I am recently divorced.
And then others of you have argued that I should never run out of gas, and in my 40+ years of driving I have not, so I was thinking mainly from filling up at the pump... The safer side would be the driver's side. Then in the most typical scenario you would get out on the pump side of the vehicle and stay there out of the craziness of some filling stations' traffic.
And also I would get a visual reminder that my gas cap was off if I went into the station to get something when I came back to the car...
I really like the benefit of not having to go through a divorce...you say the backseat passenger is sitting on the gas tank??.

Keep in mind the narrowness of the Elio. When you step out, the front left wheel can act as a visual barrier while you walk around back. You have an unusual safety zone if drivers are mindful. Anyone driving one of these is going to have to think more like a motorcyclist, anyhow.

I'd file the gas cap location under "easily dealt with," as long as it can be made to lock. Gas siphoning should be a felony in my book. Someone could leave you stranded in an isolated spot (where siphoning is easier to get away with) and cause a chain of bad events.

 

[BlioKart]

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