According to foreign media 9to5mac reports, Apple iOS 17 will have a very convenient feature for electric vehicle owners: the built-in map app of the iPhone will display real-time information on the availability of charging facilities. In the iOS 17 Beta 1 version, the feature is still under development and “some necessary data is missing.”
It is said that the map of iOS 17 will first prompt electric car owners to set up their preferred charging network, and the options include Electrify America, Chargepoint, Tesla supercharging network and so on. Once a charging network is selected, the Maps app can provide users with real-time charging availability information, including the total number of spaces available and how many spaces are occupied at a particular charging station.
At the WWDC 2020 conference three years ago, Apple announced that it would provide an “electric vehicle routing system” for electric vehicles. The feature is available on Ford Mustang Mach-E models for the first time in nearly two years. After enabling this feature on the iPhone connected to the vehicle’s CarPlay, users can create new navigation routes and view the estimated remaining battery life of the vehicle on the phone after the trip. In addition, the Apple Maps app supports automatically adding stops at electric vehicle charging stations along the route.
Later this year, the Porsche Taycan model also received support for this feature. At present, the “real-time display of charging facility availability” function mentioned above is expected to only apply to models that support the “electric vehicle routing system”.
