[Toyota bZ Infotainment] Improve charging station search functionality

We took our 2026 Toyota bZ XLE AWD on an epic road trip! We left from Green Valley, Arizona, drove to east Texas (Alba), down to Beaumont, took the ferry to Galveston, and then back home. Along the way we encountered freezing temperatures and a dust storm! So how did it go? Well, a mixed bag. The car performed flawlessly with caveats. Mechanically, there were zero issues. The Toyota app on iPhone was pretty good except for it not updating fast enough. The big, BIG problem was the infotainment system. I could NOT get it to find charging stations nor could I get it to use battery preconditioning (automatic). I only needed to use preconditioning once and manually turned it on. Let me amend that: I could have used battery preconditioning more but forgot to manually turn it on. So how did I navigate? ABRP (A Better Route Planner) and manually entering DCFC charger information into the car’s GPS. I would go to ABRP, plot a route segment, and find the next charge location. Type that information into the car’s GPS and go. I need help with this! There was one area in west Texas on I-20 where I nearly ran out of electrons. A strong headwind threw my charge calculations off. And a Google glitch said that there was a DCFC in Monahans, TX, but there wasn’t. So instead of going to my planned overnight destination in Big Spring, we had to stay in Monahans at a hotel with a L2 charger. The ABRP app is an indispensable tool for charging using an EV. I can’t say enough good things about it. If I could only get it to work with the car… alas! But with the limitations described above, finding a DCFC charger was NOT an issue. Without ABRP, I would have been in trouble, IMO. I also have PlugShare and Charge Hub but ABRP was my go-to. I was also able to overnight charge using ABRP. Charge speed was adequate. Generally, about 30 minutes because I elected to go over 80% charge. My overall impression is that a major road trip is doable. After all, we did it! But it required a tremendous amount of planning. You just cannot jump in the car and go like you can in an ICE car. The infrastructure just isn’t there. For sure, if there were chargers everywhere, it would have been a lot better. Instead, what I had to do was be ultra conservative with charge. For example, I was sure I could make it home and still have about 20% charge. But I wasn’t 100% sure. So I fed my car more electrons. Running out of “gas” in an EV is different than running out of gas in a regular car. You can’t lug a jerry can of gas and be on your way. Instead your EV will most likely have to be towed to a DCFC. But wait! There could be other problems! The 12v battery could be dead. And more problems besides! No. Running out of electrons is NOT an option. Until we achieve parity with gas stations vs DCFC chargers it’s not going to be the same. more work more planning.