Is there a simple abbreviation for "petrol" or "gasoline"?

Question

I'm making a list of vehicles, and I'd like to add the type of fuel used in engines of said vehicles right after the engine size, which is rather easy when the fuel is diesel, because that's abbreviated as D, so

2.0D / 2.0d

But the problem is when I would like to emphasize that it's a gas/petrol engine. How can that be labelled? To me, the most natural/intuitive way would be

2.0B / 2.0b / 2.0ben

because in Finnish (my native tongue) it's called bensiini or bensa (from the word benzine/benzene/benzin), but then in English it's either gas/gasoline (US) or petrol (UK). So if I'd use that elsewhere than for my own personal usage, nobody would understand.

So, is there a common or understandable way of abbreviating said fuel in English?

Answer 1

I know of no such abbreviation that would be understood by the everyday reader. If I were doing what you describe, I would create some new abbreviations just for the purposes of your list. Something like:

In this list, the following abbreviations are used: G = gasoline/petrol, D = diesel, E = electric, (etc)

Vehicle1

Engine: 2.0 D

Vehicle 2

Engine: 1.8 G

and so on.

But a search for something like "automobile engine abbreviations" or "automobile fuel abbreviations" throws up a bunch of more technical sources that might be worth a look. Here is an example. Some of the abbreviations it mentions -- e.g. TBi = Turbo Benzina injection = petrol turbo -- actually make use of the "b" as you describe.