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Google Maps Now Show When EV Charging Stations Are Occupied

One of the biggest worries for an electric car driver is no longer range anxiety per se. As the number of charghing stations grew, this type of anxiety diminished, only to be replaced by the fear of finding the charging station occupied by someone else.
Google Maps to show availability of charging stations 1 photo
Photo: Google
There are, of course, a number of apps that show which station is vacant, depending on region, but none is as widely used and convenient as Google Maps.

“If you’ve ever driven to an electric vehicle (EV) charging station only to find that all ports are occupied, you know that you could end up waiting in line for anywhere between minutes to hours—which can really put a damper on your day when you have places to go and things to do,” says Google in a blog post.

To fix this, Google announced on Wednesday that as of this week EV owners in the U.S. and the UK will be able to check in real time the availability of charging ports directly in Google Maps, so that a precious miles and valuable electricity is not wasted.

The new Maps service covers stations that belong to the Chargemaster, EVgo, SemaConnect networks, but its scope will soon expand to include ChargePoint.

According to Google, Maps will show how many ports are available, where the charging station is located, port types and charging speeds. Just as with all other Maps locations, photos, ratings, reviews, and questions about any of the stations will also be available.

For the new feature to work, Google Maps needs to be updated to the latest version.

According to Statista, at the end of 2018 there were a little over 20,000 charging stations in the U.S. that offer more than double the number of charging ports. In the UK, as per Emu Analytics, the number of stations is of 16,500.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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