American multinational tech company Google has just announced upcoming updates for its Google Maps and Search aimed at helping electric vehicle owners easily locate a charging station. Unsurprisingly, the system will heavily rely on artificial intelligence (AI).
Google Maps to Leverage AI in Improving EV Charging Experience
Google indicated in its recent blog that it will assign AI to summarize customer reviews of electric vehicle chargers in “the coming months.”
This comprehensive summary will enable the system to offer drivers more precise directions to specific chargers, including those sitting in multi-level parking garages or more multi-level parking areas. Apart from providing directions, the app will also display the charger’s speed and availability.
Google will also include more prompts in the app to urge EV drivers to submit a review after using a certain charger. The system will then feed the customer reviews into the algorithm to aid future AI-powered summaries generation.
Google Maps will request its users share key information about their experience with a particular charger stall, such as whether the session was successful. It will also ask about the charging plug type they utilized.
Moreover, Google Maps also disclosed that it will consider EV charger’s availability when users seek places to stop in overnight. It will add a charger filter to the travel search tool, enabling EV drivers to locate areas with charging plugs.
Benefits
Fast-charging stations tend to sit in some far-off corner of a parking garage. Some are even hidden behind buildings or in multi-level garages. Therefore, finding them takes too much time and effort.
With Google Maps’ upcoming feature updates, EV owners using the web mapping service can benefit from an easier and faster approach to finding charging stations.
Google indicated that EV drivers may get directions like “Enter the underground parking lot and follow the signs toward the exit. Just before exiting, turn right.”
In hindsight, Google has previously explored using AI to enhance EV owners’ charging experience with route planning and plug location. With these new updates and the company’s unprecedented access to people and data, Google Maps may highly likely advance as the super app for electric vehicle charging.
