Google Maps let you search for electric vehicle charging stations since earlier this year. But what some people, at least those that don’t drive those types of cars, don’t know is that each brand has different kinds of charging connectors. This means you can’t just drive into any station and get your car charged as it has to be specific to your manufacturer. The latest update to the navigation app now lets you filter results according to what type of plug your car needs.
Electric cars are still pretty new to the market and so we ended up with multiple charging connectors. While we can someday hope for a universal charger or at least adaptors, we have to make do right now with the ability to filter our search results for the specific charger that you need. Whether you have a Nissan vehicle with a CHAdeMO, or the CCS for the BMW and VW electric cars, or Tesla’s own proprietary connector, you will no longer have to google if that’s the correct charging station.
According to Android Police, when you search on Google Maps for charging stations for your car, you will now find a plug dropdown menu in the filter bar. You will be able to choose which plugs you’re looking for so it can just show those on your map. The app settings also has an “electric vehicle settings” option where you can choose or change your preferred plugs. It’s also the same as what you’ll see in the dropdown menu but appears in a different page.
If you’ve been using electric cars for a while now, then you know that there are actually other apps with this same functionality like PlugShare. But to have it on Google Maps is more useful, especially if you use the navigation app when you drive anyway. You don’t need another app if you’re limiting the ones installed on your device.
So if you have an electric vehicle or if you’re planning to get one, Google Maps will be your best friend when searching for the right charging stations. This feature has started rolling out to users in the U.S.