What does the leaf symbol mean on Google Maps?

While there are certainly alternatives to Google Maps, it remains one of the most useful travel and navigation apps in the world today. This is largely due to its effectiveness at what it does – finding the fastest routes and providing you with real-time traffic updates – but also due to some additional features of Google Maps that most people aren’t aware of.

One of these features concerns ecological routes. If you start navigating and see a leaf symbol next to the time and distance on Google Maps, this indicates that you are taking an eco-friendly route. An eco-friendly route takes into account traffic, the frequency of steeper areas, your ability to travel at a constant speed and several other factors to ensure you consume as little fuel as possible.

This feature only works if the eco route takes the same time as the fastest route. It might be a little slower, but there won’t be much difference in terms of time. This feature is one of the many ways navigation apps help save the environment while making your daily commute cheaper as a bonus.

Eco-friendly routes are enabled by default in Google Maps, and if two routes have similar times, your Maps app will show you which one is more eco-friendly. How to enable or disable eco-routes is largely the same for Android and iOS devices. You can do this by launching the Google Maps app and going to your profile. From there, select Settingsthen choose Navigationand finally, press Route options. Here you will find the button for ecological routes, which you can activate or deactivate at any time. You can also enable or disable this option while you are already following the instructions. To do this, tap the three dots in the upper right corner to access the Choose fuel-efficient routes to fall over.

You will need to configure your car’s engine type in the app to get the full benefits of this feature. You can do this by accessing your profile to access Settings again, but this time press Your vehicles. Select the right engine type here, whether gasoline, diesel, hybrid or electric. The optimal eco route depends on the type of engine you have, so this step is extremely important to achieve the best results.