Google Maps It’s great at getting you where you want to go, and it works so well in normal situations that we rarely give its route a second thought. But not everyone’s situation is normal, and what should you do if the vehicle you’re behind the wheel has some kind of special restriction that may prevent it from driving on any road? Currently, Maps is ill-equipped to handle this, and if you head out with an extra-long or extra-long vehicle without doing your due diligence first, you could have a bad time, to say the least. Fortunately, change is finally happening and Maps is starting to get new tools to manage routes for larger vehicles.

Ahead of this season’s holiday travels, Google is announcing a trailer-friendly routing option for Google Maps built into select vehicles. Drivers will be able to enter the length, width, height and weight of their load and drive with confidence knowing that Maps won’t steer them into a bridge or tunnel too small to fit. from beginning to end.

This looks like a big win for anyone who’s rented a U-Haul and realized at the last minute that Maps didn’t take their vehicle’s height into account — if was widely available. Google currently shares that this works with built-in Maps in the 2024 Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, and GMC Yukon, and plans to bring it to more vehicles in the future.

How about regular old Maps on your phone? Or when connecting to your vehicle Android Auto? We don’t know that right now, because Google has only explicitly mentioned its plans for the tools above. We’ve reached out to the company hoping to learn exactly what kind of expansion it’s going for, but we wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some sort of liability concern preventing Google from rolling this out everywhere. In any case, we will update this post with everything we manage to learn.