Google Maps Adds Better EV Charging Station Searching, Live View Locations

First up, the Live View visual search experience is rolling out to London, Los Angeles, New York, Pairs, San Francisco, and Tokyo. First introduced in September, the feature uses Street View images and AI.

A blog post explains more about how it works:

Say you’re visiting New York with plans to knock out your holiday shopping and catch up with friends. Lift your phone and tap on the camera icon in the search bar to see nearby stores and other places like coffee shops, banks and ATMs. With AR-powered directions and arrows, you can see what direction they’re in and how far away they are — and even spot places that aren’t in your immediate view (like a clothing store around the block) to get a true sense of the neighborhood at a glance. To find other places to hang out, tap on different place categories to explore what restaurants, bars, dessert shops, parks and transit stations are nearby.

Along with the location, you can also see information about the spots like whether it’s open, how busy it is, the price range, and Google Maps community ratings.

Anyone with an electric vehicle can now use the app to find the best charging station avaialble. Begin a search for “EV charging stations” and then choose the fast charge filter.

That will show stations with chargers 50kW or above. Another filter option is the ability to see stations that offer your car plug type.

The ability to view accessible places in now available worldwide after originally launching in the U.S., Australia, Japan, and U.K. in 2020. After turning on Accessible Locations in the app, you can see if the destination is wheelchair accessible.

Google Maps is a free download for the iPhone and all iPad models. It is also available on the Apple Watch.

Earlier this year, Google Maps on the Apple Watch was made completely independent so you don’t need your iPhone nearby to navigate.