After announcing a slew of features including group planning, music integration and sharing ETA, Google Maps has joined the electric vehicles revolution and has introduced the ability to search for electric vehicle charging stations within Maps.
Now if you search using phrases such as "ev charging," "EV charging stations," Google Maps will pop up a list of stations closest to you along with the information about the station like, "types of ports available, charging speeds...how many ports there are," and customer reviews, star ratings, and pictures.
“Worldwide on Maps, you can find all Tesla and Chargepoint stations via the application. If you're located in the US, you'll be able to find SemaConnect, EVgo, and Blink stations; for Uk drivers, you can find Chargemaster and Pod Point stations; and finally for anyone residing in Australia or New Zealand, you'll be able to locate any and all Chargefox stations,” Google said.
The update is rolling out now to users on mobile with "desktop launching in the coming weeks.
The company is working on automatic parking suggestions for a while now that will enhance the entire driving and navigating experience. According to Android Police, Google Maps will issue prompts mid-trip that offer to add a stop on your route for recommended parking locations. Unless you act quickly, the prompt will disappear and you’ll have to wait for a new one.
The feature is based on the previous Google Maps parking-related features. Earlier, in other parts of the world excluding India Google Maps used to inform users of the parking situation at their destination.
Some users in the US have reported automatic parking suggestions popping up on their phones without warning. As Google Maps works on machine learning, obviously the more you use Google Maps, the more likely it’ll be to notice it and take advantage of it.
“You should be on a relatively new version of Google Maps to access the feature, preferably the latest. Also, the Android version seems to be more likely to offer you parking suggestions, but people have also reported seeing the notification pop up on their iPhones,” the report added.
While it’s surprising that Google hasn’t officially announced the new feature, but it’s still something that plenty of people will find useful.
