Few too many answers on this one, but I feel it's worth adding this solution. It combines a few different answers.
Key points for me were
Use .onload() to wait until the script has finished loading before using it
mounted() {
// First check if the script already exists on the dom
// by searching for an id
let id = 'googleMaps'
if(document.getElementById(id) === null) {
let script = document.createElement('script')
script.setAttribute('src', 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?key=' + apiKey)
script.setAttribute('id', id)
document.body.appendChild(script)
// now wait for it to load...
script.onload = () => {
// script has loaded, you can now use it safely
alert('thank me later')
// ... do something with the newly loaded script
}
}
}