As some of you driving veterans might already be aware, lower speeds can sometimes reduce fuel consumption… depending on the type of engine under the hood of your car. Because that’s one of the few pieces of information about you that Big G cannot access (officially), you’ll have to tell your Maps app if you drive a hybrid, electric, diesel, or petrol vehicle for maximum efficiency of the eco-friendly routing feature.
You can do that from the “Route options” menu found by tapping the three-dot button at the top right of your main Google Maps screen after ticking the box confirming you do indeed “prefer fuel-efficient routes.”
Case in point, Google says the eco-friendly routing functionality has “helped remove more than half a million metric tons of carbon emissions” since exclusively launching in the US and Canada last year. That’s apparently “equivalent to taking 100,000 fuel-based cars off the road”, which sounds way more impactful than you may have expected from a relatively small Google Maps component.