Is there anything better than the fresh scent of fossil fuels first thing in the morning? Besides coffee? Or maybe the mountains, or the beach, or like, last night’s pizza? Apparently not, because Ford has discovered that if there’s one thing people love, it’s the smell of gasoline. And they’re not going to let the terrifying prospect of never smelling gasoline again get in the way of people and electric vehicles. That’s right: Ford is making a gasoline perfume.

Why is Ford making a gas perfume?

It’s a good question, because it sounds crazy. A gasoline perfume? Yet Ford doesn’t do anything without reason, and their rationale behind this is surprisingly solid. It seems that people love the overwhelming smell of gas stations, or more specifically, gasoline. In fact, in Ford’s press release, they state that they’ve created a fuel scent for people who want an electric car “yet still hold a fondness for the evocative smells of traditional petrol cars.”

The new scent is called Mach-Eau, which as you can imagine is inspired by the new electric Ford Mach-E. Personally, I think ‘Perfuel” would have worked as well, and not have limited Ford to just the Mach-E, but unfortunately, nobody asked me.

So what do you do with a gasoline-inspired scent? Do you anoint your electric car with it? Perhaps install a solar-powered diffuser onto the dashboard of your Mach-E?

No, you wear it. That’s right, the bottled smell of fossil fuels is designed to wear. Now, instead of having to lightly splash yourself with gasoline after you’ve filled your tank, you can conveniently just spritz some from your handy little perfuel spritzer. (Also, please don’t splash gasoline on yourself, you may catch on fire and/or die.)

Does Mach-Eau really smell like gasoline? 

Unfortunately no, and I only say unfortunately because it would be such an iconic scent, like AXE body spray. There would be no mistaking a person wearing Mach-Eau if they smelled like gasoline. 

So you’re thinking: what good is a gasoline-inspired perfume if it isn’t going to smell like gasoline? It’s reminiscent of gas, the way Yankee Candle’s Ocean Air is reminiscent of being on Cape Cod, without actually having to sit in three hours of traffic. Rather, Ford says that Mach-Eau “fuses smoky accords, aspects of rubber and even an ‘animal’ element to give a nod to the Mustang heritage.” Yes, it sort of sounds like it will smell like an abandoned stable that’s been used to store old tires, but they also note that it is “designed to please the nose of any wearer,” and surely one in five people wouldn’t love that.

Do people really miss the scent of gas?

Unbelievably, yes. Ford’s survey found that one in five people would miss the smell of gas more than anything else if they went electric. So naturally Ford, who is seriously committed to the electric vehicle movement, wants to help fill that void. And what better way than to make sure you can always smell like your old F-150?

Perhaps even more unbelievably (if anything could be more unbelievable than gas perfume), Ford’s survey discovered that more people prefer the smell of gasoline to wine or cheese. Perhaps Napa has been doing things wrong all these years. 

You’ve probably already tried to order Mach-Eau on Amazon, but you can’t. Ford won’t be selling Mach-Eau (not yet, anyway). Instead, it showcased it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. It’s the kind of event that attracts people who do love the smell of gas, and hopefully it helped them to realize that the voids left by the move to electric cars are only temporary.