Google maps have just launched some cool new features for electric car owners. Google maps has just updated their app for drivers, and it makes sense. More and more drivers are now starting to use electric cars, and they need different features, to the features that the standard Google maps product has right now and one of the many challenges faced by electric vehicles is infrastructure. As opposed to their gas-powered counterparts, EVs have a comparatively low level of investment into the infrastructure they need. Now, that’s not really true in general. It’s just true for, say, when you need to drive a longer distance. But the average trip, probably 95% plus of trips are taken people just use their own power from their houses, from their bedrooms, whatever it is. I mean, even their garages, carports, all kinds of areas like that.
However, charging stations are in some places still scarce. And to make electrification more plausible, an effort has been made by Google to help alleviate the lack of a charging network in some places, Google maps has introduced new features to help drivers find charging stations. And I think these features are really impressive.
Now available currently on vehicles equipped with Google maps, built in google maps, that is. Google has launched three new features for electric vehicle owners. The first of these three features, Google has added charging stations to shorter trips. For any trip that requires a charging stop, Google maps will suggest the best station to stop at based on factors like traffic, the charge level of your car, and expected energy consumption. So, in other words, obviously, having Google maps built into your car, as some EVs do, some EVs don’t. Check your EV to see if this is a feature on your vehicle. Then it actually can read your charging car status, and what your car charging status is, and give you a good idea of what the best thing to do is for your vehicle in your situation. Now, the key reason that Google has done this is to reduce range anxiety that’s apparently often associated with EVs, People are saying. Now, I don’t think range anxiety is actually associated with EVs. In fact, in surveys, we’ve seen that most people have said range anxiety is not something that they really consider when buying an electric car, or at least when owning one anyway.
Now, number two, very fast charging. There’s a filter in Google maps built-in that allows drivers to more easily find stations with chargers capable of 150 kilowatts or higher charging. For many electric vehicles, this allows drivers to get back on the road with substantial power in less than 40 minutes. Now, of course, most vehicles, well, most models don’t yet have to charge faster than 150 kilowatts, of course, there are some, the Ionic 5, KIA EV 6, Tesla model 3, and model Y. Just an example is, Porsche Taycan as well. Those vehicles all have charged much faster than 150 kilowatts. But vehicles like say the Chevrolet Bolt and the Bolt EUV have charging of about half that speed. Same thing with the BYD ATTO 3
Number 3 charging stations in Google search results. When drivers search for places like supermarkets, Google maps will also show results for places that have charging stations on site where you can park so that’s the cool thing. Basically, you’ll be able to just drive into a car park you already know, Google maps has already told you that there are charges, there are often free charges at supermarkets and actual shopping malls, those kinds of places, and it will actually direct you to those exact spaces where you can use the charges. Now, this, in my opinion, is the best feature here. Getting a free charge while you shop is brilliant and Google tells you where to go exactly. Now, they’re not going to get this right at the time, but sometimes they are. But Google telling you exactly where to go is brilliant, because often you can’t find, it’s difficult to find where those EV charges are if it’s a big car park or if it’s a multi-level car park so this, of course, allows drivers to charge their electric cars while they’re doing other things. This feature, though, is coming to heaps of places. Taco bell, for example. They’re putting EV charges in pretty much all of the United States stores eventually. Now, there are also colleges, supermarkets, restaurants, you name it. EV charging stations are going in so, whilst it’s true to some degree that the investment hasn’t been put in yet in some cities, in some states, in some countries for EV charging, actually. The reality is, I mean, every house in the western world, at least, is capable of charging your EV and the great news here is also that General Motors, Ford, Tesla, Electrify America. I mean, you name it, it’s happening. Charging stations are being built at a rapid pace all around the world. China, Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Charging stations are being built out so quickly, it’s changing so incredibly quickly. Is this something you’d use? Do you think that it would be good if Tesla vehicles had this feature, or at least had the Google inbuilt feature? Or is Tesla’s mapping system in and of itself better than this could be? Let me know your thoughts.
