In July last year, Android Auto got a new setting that allowed Google Maps to tailor the experience of electric vehicles using specific types of chargers. The “Electric vehicle settings” menu that was introduced back then supported a variety of electric vehicle chargers, including J1772, CCS (Combo 1 and 2), Type 2, and CHAdeMO.
Tesla’s NACS standard wasn’t in the supported options of the setting back then. But now, support is finally coming.
Android Auto beta version 12.9.143804 is currently rolling out with support for the NACS charger. Of course, this support is for vehicles that are not Teslas though, as Tesla vehicles do not support Android Auto at this moment. So basically, if your electric vehicle supports NACS and it’s not a Tesla, you will be able to benefit from this feature in Android Auto soon.
Image Credit – 9to5Google
With this new support, you can toggle on that your car uses an NACS charger and then be able to use Google Maps to more easily find charging stations on the way.
This week, GM released its approved NACS adapter for its electric vehicles, and for those, Google’s implementation of charger options on Android Auto is quite useful. You can select both NCAS and the CCS plug that comes built into the vehicle.
Right now, this update is rolling out through the Play Store’s beta track. So, it’s currently in beta and it has not been released yet as a stable version. However, we do expect availability to expand to more users within the next couple of weeks. And hopefully, it will be officially released soon.
I do not personally own an electric vehicle yet, but those seem to be getting more and more popular and I can’t help but think that the future of transportation is all electric. As such, features like this one on Android Auto will be getting more and more useful.