James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

https://fordauthority.com/2025/12/ford-engineer-that-designed-gas-tank-indicator-passes-away/

96•NaOH•6d ago

Comments

toomuchtodo•6d ago

“Moylan arrow”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_gauge#Moylan_arrow

https://www.vermeulenfh.com/obituaries/james-moylan-2/#!/Obi...

rationalist•1h ago

Another car thing that is named after someone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroney_sticker

Also known as the "Window Sticker"

onionisafruit•1h ago

Mansfield bars too, if you don’t mind getting ghoulish

rationalist•1h ago

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/

onionisafruit•1h ago

Sorry that was thoughtless of me to not provide a link

cf100clunk•5d ago

A couple of other links:

https://archive.ph/pluwT

https://www.jalopnik.com/2061179/inventor-little-arrow-what-...

celeritascelery•2h ago

I had no idea till this moment that’s what the arrow was for…

nutjob2•1h ago

I'm sure about 99% of people are in the same boat.

kirubakaran•1h ago

The signage is for cars, not boats.

acheron•1h ago

I didn’t know it was possible to not know this.

AlotOfReading•1h ago

I've encountered a few cars where the arrow points to the wrong side, and it's quite subtle if no one tells you.

markus_zhang•2h ago

I only knew it because someone talked about that. Very useful. RIP.

phibz•1h ago

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.

nutjob2•1h ago

First time I've heard of that convention.

deathanatos•1h ago

What a letter. Clear, concise, just chef's kiss. I love that little indicator.

anigbrowl•1h ago

Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?

arijun•1h ago

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.

chongli•59m ago

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.

kube-system•4m ago

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

netsharc•1h ago

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.

thomassmith65•48m ago

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

fourtwentynine•1h ago

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.

npunt•58m ago

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.

charcircuit•45m ago

Is that actually safer? Both you and drivers lose visibility which in my mind makes it more dangerous.

nullhole•43m ago

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"

[0] https://fordauthority.com/2020/08/ford-designer-credited-for...

KellyCriterion•3m ago

thank you, didnt know that, although Im in EU :-))

ryanjshaw•1h ago

Anybody else get confused by whether the arrow represents where the car should be or the pump?

LoFiSamurai•1h ago

michaelmdresser•1h ago

I think this is the source of me misinterpreting the symbol a few times, so yes.

sublinear•1h ago

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.

gk1•49m ago

I actually use it all the time when driving a rental.

mhdhn•20m ago

I use it all the time because I switch between a lot of different cars a lot, and my memory is not that great.

mayneack•19m ago

I use it regularly

KellyCriterion•5m ago

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

londons_explore•1h ago

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.

lostlogin•1h ago

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.

pa7ch•38m ago

whats wrong with usb-a? I feels more sturdy and less likely to have connection issues then usb-c in my experience.

lostlogin•7m ago

> whats wrong with usb-a?

Which way up it should go.

sitharus•5m ago

The other way

qwertytyyuu•33m ago

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

iancmceachern•1h ago

I use his arrow all the time. I'm also a Ford Truck Fan. RIP James.

wombatpm•1h ago

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!

waldrews•1h ago

Why didn't they just ask ChatGPT?

Oh wait.

charcircuit•52m ago

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.

weinzierl•35m ago

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.

tjr•23m ago

Wow! I just used this a few days ago when I rented a U-Haul van. Such a great user interface element.

tiku•23m ago

One of my previous cars didn't have the signaling arrow and I missed it instantly. Such a subtle great idea.

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James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

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