Google Maps will now help you find charging stations for electric vehicles

Finding a place to quickly recharge the battery of your electric car could become a little easier: Google today announced the addition of support for Google Maps for EV chargers. Tesla's global EV Chargers and Chargepoint network will be added to the iOS and Android versions of the app as of today, with the desktop version supporting the device in a few weeks.

Google Maps will also support different charging networks specific to certain countries. It will display chargers on the EVgo, Blink and SemaConnect networks in the United States. Chargemaster and Pod Point Chargers in the UK; and those of Chargefox in Australia and New Zealand.

Chargers nearby will appear in Google Maps when a user searches for related terms such as "EV Charging" or "Charging Stations". The maps will include information about the types of ports available at a given location, their power, prices, etc. as well as reviews and evaluations of pilots.

This last bit is crucial. Although new chargers for electric vehicles are coming online every week, they are still not as reliable or as fast as a gas station. Ports can be disconnected for various reasons, parking rules reserved for electric vehicles can be ignored and difficult business owners (especially parking managers) chase people looking for only a short stop to charge. It takes a lot of time to charge an electric car half empty, let alone battery.

The social component of applications such as PlugShare (or even the Chargepoint app) alleviates these problems by encouraging drivers to regularly update the status of chargers, to identify issues with the technician or on-site personnel and give advice on the best billing times.

One of the things that's missing in the initial Google Maps deployment is the ability to check if individual loadpoints are busy. This means that drivers will not know for sure if chargers are available upon arrival at the scene. Other services, such as PlugShare or Tesla's interface for its boost station, place this information in the center of the screen. In addition, Google has not yet Electrify America, the nascent network born from the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal, included in its results.