Dude, where's my car? Google Now knows

A small update tucked into the Google Search app for Android on Thursday gives the Google Now personal assistant the memory powers suburban America has been waiting for: it remembers where you parked your car.

The car locator feature will remember your car's location and set a card to remind you. It likely depends on your phone's GPS and recent improvements to Google Now that allow it to measure your velocity. Some reports on the update, including in the comments for the official Google+ post announcing the feature, have said that the feature doesn't always work.

Google said in the post that the update is rolling out to Google Search app users now.

In the Parking Location FAQ, Google says that the feature relies on "your device's sensors to know when you leave a moving vehicle." That means that parking location cards could appear in Google Now after exiting a bus or leaving a car that you've been a passenger in.

As with other Google Now cards, tap the vertical three dots Menu icon in the upper right the first time that the card appears to customize it or prevent it from re-appearing. To block the card from showing up int he first place, open Google Now and go to Customize, then tap Everything else, then answer the question that appears: "How do you usually get around?"

Update at 6:02 p.m. adds more detail on how it works.