When you fill up your car you are transferring about as much energy as a 747 jet engine could provide in the same amount of time. Here's why:
One gallon of gasoline has about 130,000,000 joules (130 megajoules) of chemical potential energy.
If your car holds 20 gallons then that means the potential energy in your tank is 20 times 130MJ or 2600 MJ. If you filled your tank in 4 minutes (240 sec), then the power (rate of energy transfer) flowing through the gas hose into your gas tank was 2600 MJ/240 sec, or 10.8 megawatts.
For simplicity let's just say about 10MW.
This means that if your car ran on a perfect battery and you could go to an electric filling station and charge your battery in 4 minutes, it would take a 10MW electric generator to provide this much power. Just how big of a generator is that? (by the way, you would need some very large cables).
Well, a power level of 10MW is equivalent to about 13500 horsepower.
A Boeing 747 loaded at 700,000 pounds cruising at 530mph develops about 15000 horsepower in each of its four engines. So, if you could somehow capture all the energy produced by a 747 engine in four minutes and put it into your gas tank, the effect would be very similar to filling it with 20 gallons of gasoline. The next time you are in a large jet and it is taking off, look at your watch for four minutes and think about how much energy that is.
http://www.geocities.com/pughscott/Gasoline.html