Google Maps now helps save fuel

With a new function, the map and navigation app Google Maps wants to help protect the environment and save money in the future. In navigation, it will henceforth be possible to choose the most fuel-efficient route.

Google Maps displays fuel-saving routes

A sustainable lifestyle is important to more and more people, including when it comes to driving and buying a car. It’s no coincidence that electric cars are booming and more and more companies are trying to get a piece of the sustainability pie. Soon there will be electricity for your own e-car at Tchibo.

Thirty-seven percent of all respondents to a study of new car buyers said they were thinking about buying an electric or hybrid vehicle, according to Google. In the future, the Google Maps navigation app will also help save gas with a new feature.

From now on, the app will also show fuel-saving routes in Germany. “So we show you in the future next to the fastest route also the fuel-saving route, if this is not already the fastest,” it says in the announcement.

This allows you to see at a glance the relative fuel savings and the difference in estimated arrival time between the two routes. In addition to route length, the feature also incorporates other factors such as road gradient and traffic congestion into the calculation, helping to optimize potential fuel consumption.

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Preset also possible

If you like, you can also use the new Google Maps feature to pre-select the most fuel-efficient route within the setting, and you’ll always be guided to your destination in the most fuel-efficient way possible.

Added to this is the option to select your own engine type. Gasoline, diesel, hybrid or electric drive are available for selection, which can be used to further optimize the fuel-saving route guidance, promises Google, “as the percentage savings and the recommended route can vary depending on the vehicle engine”.

Combining the use of artificial intelligence with insights from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the tech giant estimates it can save more than one million tons of CO2 emissions per year globally with the fuel-efficient routes on Google Maps.

Since introducing fuel-efficient routes on Google Maps in the U.S. and Canada, it has been able to save as many CO2 emissions as if it had simply taken 100,000 cars off the roads, it adds.

Fuel-efficient routes are being rolled out immediately in Germany and will be available to all Google Maps users on iOS and Android in the coming weeks.