Google Maps often comes in handy when you are driving around in your car to make essential pit stops like at restaurants and gas stations. But electric vehicles have slightly different requirements — they don’t need gas! Despite knowing this, Google Maps has still been suggesting the gas stations category at the top when using Android Auto. Thankfully, Google is finally fixing this glaring issue on EVs.
When searching Google Maps on Android Auto, there is a Categories section with some shortcuts to quickly find commonly searched places like restaurants and hotels. Gas stations have always been on top of this list, ironically, even on electric vehicles.
According to the German blog SmartDroid, Android Auto on your EV will now swap this search category for charging stations, as it should’ve done from the beginning. This will make it easy to quickly get directions to the nearest charging station when you’re in a pinch without having to awkwardly type the query on your car’s screen or summon Google Assistant.
Google has lately been making Maps more EV-friendly, like with an Android Auto setting to manually enable EV-specific features in Google Maps. You will have to enable this option to see the new quick-access search category for nearby charging stations. With this, Android Auto also lets you select the kind of charging plug your car has to accurately suggest a station that is compatible with your car and will provide the fastest charging speeds.
As far as EVs go, you will find better Maps integration on cars with Google built-in. With Google’s own software powering the car, Maps has access to more vital details like the current charge level to better plan your route so that you aren’t left stranded.
We cannot say for sure if the new charging station shortcut arrived with the latest Android Auto version or if it was a server-side switch from Google. Either way, you can download the latest app release from the Google Play Store to check it out for yourself. One change you will certainly see with the Android Auto 10 update is the new UI for Google Assistant, which has borrowed its glowing effect from Android phones.
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