Toyota battery electric vehicles (BEV) owners can now have Apple Maps help them plan charging stops along their route via CarPlay. Alongside an announcement that the Toyota bZ is now on sale, the automaker says all 2023 and newer battery-electric vehicles can now integrate real-time battery information to help drivers with iPhones find compatible chargers. In the US this would simply mean the bZ4X, which is being replaced by the bZ.
Apple Maps will take into account factors like battery performance and elevation changes when estimating battery percentages on arrival and charging times.
CarPlay is Apple's in-car infotainment system offering maps, music, calendar tools, Siri and more. While it's currently compatible with over 800 car models, EV-charger routing requires access to the car's battery info, which means automakers must work with Apple to enable the feature.
The integration's rollout remains pretty limited, and before today's announcement the only compatible vehicles were the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the F-150 Lightning and the Porsche Taycan.
Toyota also said the 2026 bZ will have access to the Tesla Supercharger network, opening up more than 25,000 charging locations for the new model. The bZ features the NACS charging standard, first created by Tesla before being open-sourced for the entire industry.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/toyota-brings-apple-maps-ev-routing-to-its-newest-models-164103063.html?src=rss
