Earlier than we had been speaking concerning the SAE Mixed Charging System (CCS) versus the Tesla North American Charging Commonplace (NACS), there was one other DC fast-charging protocol that had an actual shot at changing into the winner: CHAdeMO (which apparently stood for Charging de Transfer). It was adopted by Nissan and different Japanese automakers, with it showing way back to the first-generation Nissan Leaf. However many different automakers settled on CCS as an alternative, earlier than finally selecting NACS. Another appropriate automobiles turned accessible with the usual within the U.S., such because the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Kia Soul EV, however the Leaf was the amount providing utilizing CHAdeMO. Whereas many stations present and upcoming nonetheless have CHAdeMO compatibility, it is positively the least consultant format, and certain will not be as simple to search out sooner or later. The actually massive difficulty is that Nissan doesn’t provide any kind of adapter to make the most of different DC chargers. In reality, adapters for the format have been fairly uncommon throughout the board on account of problems in getting the totally different protocols to speak. Tesla truly made an adapter to attach its vehicles to CHAdeMO quick chargers, however that is lengthy since been discontinued. And the shortage of adapters has been excessive sufficient that some Leaf homeowners have been figuring out methods of merely eradicating the CHAdeMO system and retrofitting CCS charging {hardware}. Nevertheless it appears one other firm has risen to the problem.
The corporate in query is Dongguan Longood Know-how Co., Ltd., a Chinese language firm that appears to make quite a lot of EV charging tools from full chargers to connectors and adapters. And certainly, the corporate now has listed in its Alibaba on-line retailer each for the American CCS1 connector and the European CCS2. These are along with quite a lot of different format adapters, and it appears the corporate may even make a NACS to CHAdeMO connector if requested (the merchandise itemizing solely exhibits renderings, although). We have not had our palms on the adapters, however YouTuber Dala’s EV Restore has. In his video, he takes his first-generation Nissan Leaf to a CCS charging station and demonstrates the way it works, which is very simple: Plug the adapter into the charger finish, press “Begin” on the adapter, after which plug it into the automotive finish.
As Dala notes, and we agree, the charger adapter is just not low-cost. The value for the CCS1 model is $1,050 within the minimal order amount of two to 9. The value goes down when ordered in bulk. The rationale for all that is that sellers on Alibaba are typically promoting to companies that can resell their merchandise, probably underneath different model names. Nonetheless, Dala notes which you could buy a single instance from the corporate for private use, just by contacting the corporate immediately, and there’s contact data on the Alibaba web page. Additionally, whereas $1,050 is not a small amount of cash, we will think about that there are many house owners of Nissan Leafs specifically that may be glad to choose up this piece of kit for some critical charging nervousness aid.
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