Олег Онопрієнко AI Eng 4 November 2026, 09:00

When artificial intelligence plays dump. Test drive of the Gemini car on Ukrainian roads

“When did World War II start?” — your own car can arrange such a quiz in the middle of the road if the navigation is entrusted to the Gemini AI agent in Google Maps. We tested the new virtual navigator from Google on Ukrainian roads. As it turned out, it perfectly plots routes and knows about technical maintenance, but suffers from total amnesia and has an extremely unpleasant habit of hallucinating and suddenly answering the driver in Russian.

What Google promised

Google is actively promoting a new concept of driver-machine interaction , introducing the Gemini generative AI agent into the transportation ecosystem through Google Maps. The update is based on the Personal Intelligence philosophy, the main goal of this innovation is to ensure maximum multitasking without any distraction from the road.

It is stated that Gemini will be able not only to build routes, but also to maintain a live dialogue, search for specific information, generate ideas for trips and control smartphone functions. The promises paint an image of an ideal digital autopilot, but the real operation on Ukrainian roads is somewhat different.

How the Gemini car looks at Google presentations

What were they riding?

For the test, we used a Mazda 3 sedan, to which we connected the iPhone 17 smartphone via a classic wired connection using a USB Type-C cable, which activated the Apple CarPlay system on the standard on-board computer display.

Immediately after connecting and launching the navigator, the characteristic Gemini icon in the form of a stylized star automatically appears on the car screen. It is integrated into the search bar, completely replacing the classic and somewhat outdated Google Assistant. Just click on this icon to activate the generative neural network and start a full-fledged dialogue with the car.

Route construction

It is worth noting right away that the car Gemini recognizes human speech well, even if you speak quickly and there is background noise from the road or the climate control is on. Route construction takes place in a matter of seconds, eliminating any need to stop on the side of the road or reach dangerously for the phone if you had to do it manually.

The AI agent rebuilds existing routes if you decide to change your plans right while driving. By default, the assistant tends to announce directions only through official route numbers, which may be difficult for some drivers to hear. So you have to give Gemini an additional instruction with a recommendation to announce the route using the names of settlements, after which the artificial intelligence adapts and starts working much more logically for human perception.

An example of comprehensive trip planning was a test route from Kyiv to Lviv. The task was complicated by the conditions: a 40-liter gas tank, average fuel consumption of 6 l/100 km, departure with a full tank, and the need to refuel at a gas station of a specific network somewhere halfway after burning about 20 liters of gasoline. Gemini quickly calculated that 20 liters would be enough for about 330 km of the road, and suggested a stop at a gas station in Rivne. At the driver's request, the assistant instantly added a stop to the route, and also specified the current cost of fuel. Upon additional request, the AI selected a self-service car wash at the entrance to Lviv, comparing it with other options.

The driver also intentionally tested the AI agent for awareness of the current traffic situation. The AI agent honestly abdicated responsibility, admitting that it did not have technical access to the car's speedometer data and the location of video cameras, and urged the driver to focus solely on road signs.

AI car mechanic

In addition to navigation, we decided to test the AI’s technical expertise by asking it for help in selecting consumables for scheduled maintenance. Here, an important feature immediately became apparent — the AI does not have access to the car’s telemetry via CarPlay, so it has absolutely no idea what car you are currently in. To get a relevant answer, the driver first needs to clearly state their make, model, and engine type.

After specifying the car information, Gemini instantly generated a detailed list of recommendations, indicating the correct viscosity of engine oil, the required tolerances, and also reminded about the need to replace the oil, air and cabin filters. Inquiries about operational characteristics were also processed well, the AI accurately named the average fuel consumption for the car model's 1.5-liter engine, both in the city cycle and on the highway.

When asked how much a similar car can currently be sold for on the secondary market in Ukraine, Gemini quickly analyzed current pricing and provided a completely adequate price range that meets the realities of Ukrainian car lots.

Amnesia and a music lover without music

Unfortunately, long-term communication revealed a number of bugs and software limitations in some officially declared functions. The biggest disappointment was that the car Gemini has absolutely no access to your previous history of communication with the chatbot from a personal computer or smartphone. It has literally zero idea about you as a person, your professional interests or the topics you have discussed with it before.

You are communicating with a stranger every time.

Moreover, despite the fact that all your conversations in the car are automatically saved in the chat history of your Google account and are then available for viewing from all other devices, BUT if you turn off the car, the next time you start the engine, the AI bot's memory becomes completely clean again, and it forgets the context of your past trip.

Despite the fact that at the start of the trip Gemini confidently stated that it could fully control the multimedia in the car, in practice this information was not confirmed at all. When we asked to turn on the music, the AI began to appeal to the fact that the appropriate permissions for such integration were allegedly not enabled in the smartphone's mobile application. However, even after stopping the car and forcibly manually enabling absolutely all possible permissions in the settings, it was still not possible to turn on music via voice command either in Spotify or in the native Google Music.

The funniest thing happened later, when the AI assistant suddenly changed its position and began to categorically declare that it did not have such functionality at all and did not know how to work with players. And after the driver directly pointed out that the assistant himself had boasted about this function at the beginning of the conversation and asked for permission, the AI simply went into a “freeze”. He said in a cheerful voice that he had turned on the ordered track, although in reality there was silence in the speakers and nothing was happening.

Among the useful functions, it is worth noting the assistant's ability to read current news from the network, as well as the ability to enable various interactive quizzes and quizzes. However, even here there were unpleasant surprises associated with localization. During testing, the AI several times severely hallucinated and suddenly gave results in Russian, and it did so even when the driver persistently asked it not to do this and demanded to communicate exclusively in Ukrainian.

The Gemini car is a very promising, but still raw product. The lack of memory between trips, problems with multimedia, and language hallucinations show that the technology still has room to grow. However, the ability to build complex routes on the go, select consumables for maintenance, and entertain on the road shows a significant improvement compared to previous versions. Of course, the future, where a car turns from a simple means of transportation into Keith from "Knight of the Roads," is still far away, but already now Gemini can quite replace the average static passenger or fellow traveler.

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