A filling station is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s are gasoline (gasoline or gas in the U.S. and Canada, generally petrol elsewhere) and diesel fuel. A filling station that sells only electric energy is also known as a charging station, while a typical filling station can also be known as a fuelling station, garage (South Africa, United Kingdom and Ireland), gasbar (Canada), gas station (United States and Canada), gasoline stand or SS (Japan), petrol pump or petrol bunk (India), petrol garage, petrol station (Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom and Ireland), service station (Australia, Japan, New Zealand and United Kingdom), a services (United Kingdom), or servo (Australia).
Fuel dispensers are used to pump petrol/gasoline, diesel, compressed natural gas, CGH2, HCNG, LPG, liquid hydrogen, kerosene, alcohol fuel (like methanol, ethanol, butanol, propanol), biofuels (like straight vegetable oil, biodiesel), or other types of fuel into the tanks within vehicles and calculate the financial cost of the fuel transferred to the vehicle. Fuel dispensers are also known as bowsers (in some parts of Australia),petrol pumps (in most Commonwealth countries) or gas pumps (in North America). Besides fuel dispensers, one other significant device which is also found in filling stations and can refuel certain (compressed-air) vehicles is an air compressor, although generally these are just used to inflate car tyres. Also, many filling stations incorporate a convenience store, which like most other buildings generally have electricity sockets; hence plug-in electric vehicles can be recharged.