Thanks to an altruistic member of the EVANI Committee, we got our hands on the new CCS to CHAdeMO adaptor, ordered for their Nissan e-NV200 van. So how is it performing and could this be the long-term answer for public charging for all the vehicles out there that still use this standard?
Testing
The adaptor houses a female CCS2 socket on one side and a CHAdeMO male connector on the other. Simply plug the CCS lead into the unit then plug the unit into the vehicle.
In the last few days it has been tested on a variety of hardware around Northern Ireland and found to work successfully with rapid chargers from ESB, Ionity, Maxol and Weev.
The adaptor currently fails on EasyGo and BP Pulse units, although the BP chargers are known to be finicky and won’t, for example, charge the Telsa Model S or MG4 currently either.
The unit has a small built-in battery to power the electronics that carry out the standards translation magic. It’s charged while in use, but you’ll need to top it up manually (via its built-in USB-C port) if it sits unused for around 8 weeks or more.
That USB port also allows the unit to receive firmware updates as well as capture session data from the charging hardware that fails, which can then be sent back to the developers to help solve incompatibilities.
As for speed, of course you are still limited to the CHAdeMO DC capabilities of your vehicle, so charging at a 350kW ultra-rapid CCS will still provide 50kW for most.
But this isn’t about speed as much as it’s about opening up the increasingly CCS-only public charging network to CHAdeMO vehicles.
Cost
Before all the Nissan Leaf drivers start to rejoice, there’s the not-so-small matter of cost. This Dongguan Longood Technology CCS2 adaptor was purchased from Alibaba (CCS1 version available too) and was around £800 plus import duty and vat. Several other manufacturers are now making similar adaptors, including Evoyage and Electway.
For now, Leaf drivers that are heading on holiday for example might be able to hire one of these units by the week (let us know if you would be interested in EVANI buying one to rent out).
The Future
It’s probably too early for this unit to appeal to private motorists, not least due to the current cost. That said, as with any other technology, the price of these units will fall in the future. At the same time compatibility should increase and any questions around certifications and safety concerns should be answered.
And it’s not impossible to think that some Charge Point Operators might eventually include these on their rapids, a lot like the Tesla Magic Dock that allows CCS cars to charge from the NACS connectors at Supercharger sites open to the public in America.
After years of hearing that a CCS to CHAdeMO adaptor was an impossibility, it’s great to witness this unit in action and we look forward to these adaptors allowing many older EVs to continue to use public chargers in the years ahead.
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