Google introduced a couple of updates to Android Auto, together with a brand new dashboard for Google Assistant driving mode.

Earlier this yr, Google shut down the standalone “Android Auto for Phone Screens” app with Android 12. Instead, Android cellphone homeowners are actually advisable to make use of the Google Assistant driving mode obtainable inside Google Maps or the native Android Auto interface obtainable in choose vehicles.

For Android prospects with older vehicles who use their telephones for navigation and different capabilities, Google Assistant driving mode now consists of “glanceable, tappable cards” with music, textual content messages, and different often used apps collected multi functional place. Customers will be capable of use voice instructions like “Hey Google, let’s drive” to open the brand new driving mode dashboard, decreasing the necessity to futz along with your cellphone.

Google says that is designed to make sure drivers maintain their eyes on the street and never on their telephones. Drivers can even have their incoming textual content messages learn out loud to them utilizing voice management.

There are additionally new updates to Android Auto, which mirrors your smartphone’s show in your automotive’s infotainment display screen. Drivers can choose which apps they need to see once they first plug their cellphone into their automotive (or when it connects through Bluetooth). This is also designed to chop down on driver distraction.

Distraction is a serious drawback for drivers, particularly as infotainment methods grow to be flashier and extra difficult. A current study discovered that drivers deciding on music with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto had slower response instances than those that had been excessive from smoking pot. Google has been making an attempt to work its approach via this drawback for a number of years now, however they’ve but to reach at a definitive resolution.

When their automotive is safely parked, Android Auto prospects can play video games from GameSnacks proper on their automotive’s show. For those that don’t acknowledge the identify, GameSnacks is Google’s sequence of HTML5-based browser video games that are supposed to be straightforward to load and play on practically any gadget.

Lastly, Google introduced that Android Auto customers will quickly be capable of use Google Pay to pay for fuel. After pulling right into a fuel station, drivers want solely choose their pump quantity on the display screen and Google Pay will do the remainder. (Of course, they’ll nonetheless must get out of the automotive and pump their fuel; Google hasn’t discovered the way to automate that but.)

Automakers have been constructing fee choices into their vehicles for years now. For instance, Chevrolet has a take care of Shell that lets drivers pay for fuel from their car’s infotainment display screen. But this function has but to go mainstream.

The new Google Pay function shall be obtainable at 32,500 fuel stations within the US beginning with Exxon and Mobil stations, with Shell, Conoco, Phillips 66, and 76 stations coming quickly.