Talk:Gasoline

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.

Discussions

The primary dispute has been whether the article should be moved to Petrol. Many arguments were presented for both sides, but after all else failed, consensus was to keep the original editor's title, as per the relevant style guideline:

"If an article has evolved using predominantly one [national variety of English], the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic. In the early stages of writing an article, the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used."

Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination::

Move discussion: Gasoline → Petrol, 2005: Opposed. (Discussion)
RM: Gasoline → Petroleum-based fuel, 7 November 2007, Withdrawn. (Discussion)
RM: Gasoline → Petrol, 24 August 2019, Not moved. (Discussion)
RM: Gasoline → Petrol (gasoline), 22 March 2023, Withdrawn. (Discussion)
RM: Gasoline → Gasoline also known as petrol, 7 August 2023, Procedural close. (Discussion)

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"Petrol" is not exclusively used for gasoline, and should be indicated as a colloquialism, as "Gas" is.

"Petrol" is short for "petroleum" and as a result "petrol" is used to indicate a whole range of petroleum based products in the world, not just gasoline.

While it is most commonly used in reference to gasoline, it is not exclusively used as such, and is also commonly used to refer to other petroleum distillates.

The only proper name for gasoline is gasoline. Both "Gas" and "Petrol" are colloquialism and should be indicated as such. 142.189.17.53 (talk) 18:29, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is news to me. To be fair, petrol is not in my active vocabulary at all, so I'm not the best judge, but I don't ever recall hearing it used to mean anything but gasoline. Can our British/Australian/other-commonwealth-minus-Canada friends weigh in here? --Trovatore (talk) 23:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Australia, "petrol" is the stuff you put in your car with an internal combustion engine. It doesn't refer to anything else. HiLo48 (talk) 02:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That was my understanding as well. 142.189.17.53 can you give any examples of "petrol" being used to mean other petroleum products? Nothing relevant seems to be mentioned at petrol (disambiguation) either. --Trovatore (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As another Australian, my understanding is identical to that of the previous Australian: “petrol” is used exclusively to describe… well, I want to say “petrol”.

I would never refer to petroleum jelly as “petrol” — and if I did, people would have no idea what I meant. Foxmilder (talk) 06:12, 16 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia page Biofuel in Australia, for example, refers to “petrol (gasoline)”, suggesting these terms refer to the same thing. Foxmilder (talk) 06:19, 16 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It suddenly occurs to me, incidentally, that the name of a well-known American petroleum jelly product rhymes closely with “gasoline”.

Is that a deliberate marketing device? If so, some of the secondary connotations of “gasoline” and “petrol” may differ between the American and Australian terms. I can’t imagine an Australia in which the name of a popular skin care product is named so as to bring to mind motor-vehicle fuels. Foxmilder (talk) 06:23, 16 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I know it's two years later but to respond to your first part, "-oline" (or -eline) as a suffix indicates things related to oils (or parts thereof, as the -ine part indicates smallness), much as "oleo-" as a prefix. Vaseline was following that with its name. oknazevad (talk) 14:33, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Better to reply two years later to tell me something I didn’t know than not to reply at all, I’d say. Thankyou for explaining this — it’s worth knowing. Foxmilder (talk) 04:09, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of combustion engine?

Some cars take gasoline, others take diesel. Both are petroleum products. 98.186.194.119 (talk) 16:50, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No Australian would ever say their car takes gasoline. The word id very rarely used here. Not unknown, just very rarely used, so no clear meaning to most people. The stuff you sick in your car is either described as petrol or diesel or sometimes (increasingly rarely) gas. Gas mean LPG or liquefied petroleum gas, NOT what Americans call gas. HiLo48 (talk) 23:56, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is not at all true. Petrol is the term used for the refined petroleum product that Americans would call Gas. We call other petroleum products different things, like diesel. Chattenoir (talk) 05:08, 9 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Split proposal

The article has a large section devoted to the use of gasoline in WWI and WWII with particular emphasis on the US. I propose to shift this content to its own article (maybe Gasoline in World War II or Petrol in World War II?). But readers who seek general info on gasoline are unlikely to be so focused on the military angle and the US. --Smokefoot (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Completely agree. Chattenoir (talk) 05:06, 9 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

i have to agree on this ~2026-32354-56 (talk) 04:16, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Flammability, flash point etc.

Unreferenced statement from the article.

"Gasoline is flammable with low flash point of −23 °C (−9 °F). Gasoline has a lower explosive limit of 1.4 percent by volume and an upper explosive limit of 7.6 percent."

My own estimate of the flash point is −36 °C (−33 °F) based on a simple observation that cars will not start in weather below that temperature. Gasoline condenses on the cold walls of the cylinder inside the engine and even under compression will not ignite from the ignition spark. A graph or chart of upper and lower explosive limits by temperature and pressure would be nice. Justina Colmena ~biz (talk) 12:55, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I was gonna say car engines have radiators and all that, however I did find mutliple good sources which state the lower flashpoint as -42C. https://www.fireandsafetycentre.co.uk/blogs/safety-storage/flash-points-of-common-flammable-substances http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/ukropina2/ https://taylorandfrancis.com/knowledge/Engineering_and_technology/Chemical_engineering/Flash_point/

I will try to find an academic journal which states the flashpoint Chattenoir (talk) 13:27, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I also see that on Flash_point it lists Gasoline as -43. And I have more sources now, one from University of Washington https://depts.washington.edu/vehfire/fuels/flashpoint.html and Stanford http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/ukropina2/

I will change the figure and give the citations Chattenoir (talk) 13:37, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Refinery photo needed?

Two of the article's photos are of "Upstream" items: beam pumping unit and offshore drilling and production platform. Not especially applicable; a generic refinery photo would be better. Casey (talk) 12:46, 29 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There should be a list of countries that use each type of gasoline.

It's like an Excel spreadsheet, where the countries are listed from top to bottom, and from left to right are the types of fuel currently in use, used, and to be used. Those already in use are marked with a red X, those currently in use are marked with a green V, and those to be used are noted. Nguyễn Quốc Anh (1248) (talk) 08:04, 20 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]