Electric vehicle charging stations are now on the Waze map Mar 14, 2023 1 min read Finding a charging station for your electric vehicle just got a lot easier. Starting today, you’ll be able to enter your electric vehicle (EV) car and plug type into the Waze app to find relevant EV charging stations along your route. This feature will roll out globally over the coming weeks. Charging station information is often inconsistent, outdated or unreliable, creating a major pain point for EV drivers who may navigate to a charging station only to discover they can’t find it or use it. By adding up-to-date EV charging information to the Waze map, it’s even easier to charge your car and get help finding where or when you’ll come across the next station. Thanks to local Map Editors from our Waze Community, EV data is reviewed and updated in real-time to provide the most accurate, comprehensive information to the map. Waze is committed to making it easier and more accessible for EV drivers to charge your vehicles. Whether you’re preparing for a long summer road trip or heading across town to a soccer game, you can rest assured Waze will help you find a charging station along the way. https://blog.google/waze/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-are-now-on-the-waze-map/
Apple's had this in Maps for a couple years, but nobody (except maybe Ford) has actually updated their vehicle app to take advantage of it. A personal point of frustration for me. Maybe if Waze has it now it'll spur Apple to encourage more adoption. Real-Time Routing: How to Find an EV Charging Station With Apple Maps
I think the difference is that Waze has crowdsourced real-time info about inop chargers and the like.
Crowdsourcing is Waze's hook, true. But if you include PlugShare's offering they each have their pluses and minuses. Although since nobody seems to want to use Apple's implementation we have no idea how up-to-date the information would be.
I don't know anything about the Waze real-time info about inop chargers. How is it better than the user-updated info panel on PlugShare? Edit: I found this on the PC Magazine site: To keep the data fresh, Waze will tap into its driver community. "Thanks to local Map Editors from our Waze Community, EV data is reviewed and updated in real-time to provide the most accurate, comprehensive information to the map," Waze says. What do local Map Editors do? When a Waze user reports an inoperative charging station, does the local Map Editor race to the charging station and sit in their EV, checking minute-by-minute until the charging station works again? Do all local Map Editors have EVs? How "local" are they? It would seem that the companies running/repairing charging stations have to be somehow involved. Or are the companies loathe to reveal information that could be used to compare and track the reliability of different charging networks? How would Blink answer this question? @insightman asks, "Blink! Blink! Are you still out there?"
Every Waze user is a "local map editor." That's how Waze is able to show real-time traffic, and advise what the disruption might be (ie. "accident") or warn about where there are speed traps and mobile photo radar units. So the moment you sit in your car and report on Waze that EA unit ABC at location 123 is inop, you've "edited" the info. The "community" is everyone who uses Waze, whether for simple navigation, or interactively as an "editor."
Sounds like "local map editors" have more work to do... Waze says it’s added EV chargers to its map, but it’s still sending me to gas stations
This article indicates Waze Map Editors have extra powers that regular users don't have--or are regular users somewhere identified as "local Map Editors"? Who's going to investigate a charging station identifed by a Waze user as non-functional (it might actually be functional, but non-functional for an inept Waze user)? If I'm a Waze user, returning to that charging station over and over to test it until it works is pretty low on my to-do list. Waze Map Editors: The heroes behind the map To put in brief terms, map editors build, fix, and protect the map. But they do a lot more than that. There are tens of thousands of people from around the world in places like Brazil, the U.S., Europe, APAC, and Israel who volunteer their time. While any Wazer can report real-time alerts like traffic or hazards on the road, only map editors can make updates like new streets or changes in turning lanes.
It's a bit nitpicky, though. The Waze blog announcement clearly says "this feature will roll out globally over the coming weeks." OK, so it's not ready for Ms. Lewis' commutes between Manchester and the Cape, or west along 202/88 to Scranton... ok.
Who tests broken charging stations to see if they've been repaired in the regions where this feature is now in service? I expect Wazers would avoid broken charging stations rather than take time to seek them out to see if they're really broken. Would a Wazer declare a charging station broken just to reduce the traffic that might impede the charging of their vehicle? Naw. Just like Wazers would never report blockages on the streets in front of their homes.
Yup, every Wazer is a "local" editor, as noted above they inform other users when they "report" something. But all logged in Wazers can also "edit" any Waze map element anywhere, by opening a Waze map in Chrome. I honestly never needed speed trap info, and a coworker got into a bad accident by losing focus while "reporting" a local condition on Waze, so when Google Maps added live traffic I simply deleted Waze from my devices; I never saw the purpose behind gamification of Maps (or GasBuddy, for that matter). But with live EV charging station info coming RSN (real soon now), I might add it again.
If I get to an EA site and three of the four chargers are inop, they do not show in the EA app (or on Google or Apple Maps). Reporting it to PlugShare helps, but more people use Waze on a daily basis than PlugShare, and I suspect this is the intent; not to send people to inop chargers to verify, but rather to have live reporting from everyday users, similar to traffic conditions and speed traps. As soon as I sit in my car and tell Waze this charger is inop, or if Waze knows I'm charging and I haven't reported an issue, other Wazers who might be on that map (and possibly be heading to that location) can immediately know.
I guess that can work when one of a group of charging stations is inop, but what about then both charging stations at a supermarket are inop? Who's going to go out of their way to test them and how many times will they do that before giving up?
I'm not sure I understand. Waze isn't sending users out of their way to report anything. If no Wazers are checking in from an EV charging location, it might not know "both" are inop. But if a Wazer has reported both to be inop, and the app notes on its own that no Wazers have been visiting, it will continue to accept that the location's two units are inop. However, if a Wazer happens upon it and reports that's no longer the case, the app updates. I'll go out on a limb and surmise that the app will be smart enough to know that if Wazers are at the location regularly while it is showing as inop, that it will update itself to indicate otherwise.
If I was a Wazer, I'd avoid the broken charging stations the app warns me about. Updating the repaired status of broken charging stations just doesn't seem to fit the crowdsourcing model to me. Waze is a tool that promotes convenience; this new feature expressly discourages Wazers from experiencing the inconvenience of going to a known broken charging station.
What you aren’t taking into account is that the EV station repair people are also part of the crowd sourcing data. So if a system in inoperable and they fix it they can report to Waze that the system is now operating. Plus PlugShare uses the same concept and somehow it works.
But I believe that's how PlugShare works. I've noticed people (including me!) tend to return to broken locations to see if they're working. In my case they happen to be at grocery stores which I'm going to anyway.
