Why is the charge port on the left side when we drive on the right side of the road in North America

[f-stop]

Don't know if anyone remembers, in the 50's manufacturers played a game of where to hide the fuel input - behind tail lights, license plates etc. The hilarious fueling episode in the Chevy Chase film Vacation comes to mind.

I can't remember when, but long ago they got rid of those rear fuel filler locations on cars for crash safety reasons. And I think the filler on opposite side as single-exhaust is supposedly for same reason.

 

[brucet999]

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Ah, but my house is over 85yrs old! So yeah the detached garage is tiny by modern standards. (BTW I have a 70D, not a Leaf)

The MS is about 16'4" long, and with front bumper touching the wall and garage door closed I maybe have 9" or less to spare, and that excludes sharp brackets/hinges protruding inwards from the door. I envy anyone with 20'+ garages!

Oops, stupid me. I read comment about front charging not working for you for lack of space and jumped to a dumb conclusion.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I had a Lotus Esprit many years ago ... had a fuel filler cap on both sides. Of course it was useless - in the sense that you had to undo both, to let the air out, to allow fuel to flow through the connecting pipe between the two tanks, but you could drive up to pumps either-side.

Dunno if both-sides ports would be an option for EVs? Probably doesn't fit well with fancy self-opening/closing port doors

 

[f-stop]

following photo (& car) isn't mine, I found it in a local Plugshare entry and just copied it here:
- just an example how front plug location might not always be best when there's inconsiderate other drivers around... look how this Subaru ICE parked up so close to the poor Leaf!!

at this particular charger, there are two EV-only parallel parking spaces on a city street here downtown. In front of the two EV spots there's about 1.5 car lengths to the street corner, but it's clearly marked as No Parking/No Stopping ahead of the EV spots. I've seen other ICE parked illegally ahead of these EV spots before, so my guess is the Subaru thought he might get away with it by parking as far back as possible from the no parking sign

 

[smartypnz]

I know it may be too late at this point, but wish public chargers had ignored gas station design altogether and designed from scratch.
EV charging cables should have come from above, thereby reaching a port located anywhere. Gas hose from above is rare, but also dangerous. EV is made for this. In home garage also.

Even visualizing those water tanks along the old railroad tracks that swung out to deliver water to the steam locomotives.

 

[wdolson]

LOL I had completely forgotten there were gas caps under the fold down license plates way back when. I can picture my dad pulling the plate down to fill up.

I think the last cars built with the fuel port under the license plate was the Chevy Caprice/Buick Roadmaster from 1992=1995. They were body on frame, rear wheel drive cars built on the same frame as the 1977~1990 Chevy Impala/Caprices (as well as Olds, Buick, and Cadillac full sized cars of that era). From the frame up they were new designs though. It was also one of the last car with the pair of keys.

I had a 92 Roadmaster I bought new and finally sold just before Christmas last year. For an ICE, it was a great car, but my Model S is so much nicer in most ways. The seats on the Roadmaster were still nicer, they were like a nice comfy chair which made road trips nice. For everything else the S is better.

One reason they quit putting the fuel port behind the rear license plate is the trunk lids. Pretty much all cars designed in the last 20 years have trunk lids that go down almost to the rear bumper and usually the license plate is mounted on the trunk lid. The Roadmaster had a big trunk, but with a rear lip that was about 2 1/2 feet high. There was a cargo net that allowed carrying things like a couple of bags of groceries secure against the back trunk edge, but it was a major pain getting large and heavy things in any out.

If Tesla was going to put the charge port on the side of the car I wish they had put it on the passenger side for whatever country the car is built for because street side charging is going to become more common and it's safer and more convenient to have the plug on the curb side of the car. Though I do like the way Nissan did it better with the Leaf. I much prefer to nose in and back out. About the only narrow space backing up I've done in more than 20 years is backing into supercharger spots.

This is far from universal, but the majority of people who are comfortable backing into things like parking spaces with cars on both sides are male. I don't like it either, but I only know a couple of women who would even attempt such a thing.

Not necessarily. My Chevy pickup has it on the driver's (left) side. My wife's (American made) outback had it on the right. GM used to be mostly left side, be seems to be a mix now. I had a Chevy Cruze rental recently that had it on the wrong (IE, passenger) side.

The two Subarus we've had (a 96 Outback, and 2013 Impreza) both have the fuel port on the right.

A bit of a funny fuel port story. In 2015 I had to rent a car and got a Nissan of some kind. The first time I stopped for gas I remembered to look for the icon around the fuel gauge and pulled up to the pump on the correct side (it was on the left if I remember correctly). But then I couldn't figure out how to get the dang door open! I looked all around inside the car for a door release, but couldn't find it. I looked on the key fob for a button. Finally out of frustration I bumped the fuel port door and it opened.

 

[wdolson]

I had a Lotus Esprit many years ago ... had a fuel filler cap on both sides. Of course it was useless - in the sense that you had to undo both, to let the air out, to allow fuel to flow through the connecting pipe between the two tanks, but you could drive up to pumps either-side.

Dunno if both-sides ports would be an option for EVs? Probably doesn't fit well with fancy self-opening/closing port doors

I've found the range of the self opening button is pretty short, only a couple of feet at most. I would think it unlikely that pushing the button on one side would open the other side, but if it did, the other side would automatically close after a few seconds.

One problem I can think of with two ports is somebody is going to try using both at once. There would have to be something in the hardware to prevent it. But it would really tick people off at a supercharger to pull in and find the guy next to you has plugged in the cables from both sides and left.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I've found the range of the self opening button is pretty short, only a couple of feet at most

I was thinking of the Centre Screen "Open port" button - PITA if it popped up a "Which side?" dialog box

it would really tick people off at a supercharger to pull in and find the guy next to you has plugged in the cables from both sides and left.

Good point - no need for the adjacent car at the supercharger to plug in both sides to tick you off, the adjacent car only needs to do "wrong side" and if you are on the end you have no cable to connect with at all

So maybe "opposite corners" then? Can pull in forwards, and use passenger side (left-hand-drive countries) front charger, or backward and use driver-side one ... no idea if there is any merit in that though.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Finally out of frustration I bumped the fuel port door and it opened.

Rented a tipper-truck recently. Got to the filling station and couldn't find the filler cap anywhere! Had to get the manual out ... it required opening the Passenger door, which "locked" the lip of a small hinged panel which, when opened, revealed the filler cap behind that. Maybe a way to thwart people from siphoning fuel ... but it had me foxed, the first time.

 

[SMAlset]

Saw that the new Lucid will have their charging port located right in the front middle "hood" section according to their website. So far no photos of how they are doing their storage, like frunk and/or trunk. With their executive seating those back passengers look to sit pretty far back into the rear of the car so I imagine they'll have a frunk. I just think about crumple zone at front and rear of car and the wisdom and expense of repairs to chargers put directly in that area. Have no idea but would tend to think the majority of accidents to cars involve the front and/or rear of the car. I'd hate to have my charger taken out by someone rear ending me or backing into me. Sometimes your car can still be driveable but without the ability to charge you're pretty dead in the water.