CHADEMO to CCS adapter?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Wavebender

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 7, 2021
Messages
67
Location
Boise ID USA
Forgive me if this has been discussed, but I could not find anything on the site. Is a CHADEMO to CCS adapter available or even possible? Does CCS contain some proprietary chip that prevents it from accepting any available juice via an adapter to existing connectors?
 
Wavebender said:
Forgive me if this has been discussed, but I could not find anything on the site. Is a CHADEMO to CCS adapter available or even possible? Does CCS contain some proprietary chip that prevents it from accepting any available juice via an adapter to existing connectors?

Possible, yes, available, no. :(
It has been discussed a lot here and the highlights are mainly the development time and cost to do it. It's possible to make one, but it would take a lot of time to create a working prototype and a lot of money as well. No car manufacture has put any time or resources to create such an adapter, so unless we all start a GoFundMe page to finance a project that big, it's beyond those of us here with the technical skills but not the resources to do it.
 
knightmb said:
Possible, yes, available, no. :(
It has been discussed a lot here and the highlights are mainly the development time and cost to do it. It's possible to make one, but it would take a lot of time to create a working prototype and a lot of money as well. No car manufacture has put any time or resources to create such an adapter, so unless we all start a GoFundMe page to finance a project that big, it's beyond those of us here with the technical skills but not the resources to do it.
I only have experience with the Leaf, but don’t other EVs use CHADEMO? I thought it was used by Nissan, Mitsubishi, Kia, Hyundai, and several Japanese market-only cars like BMW and Porsche. Those cars will be in use for many years to come. Seems like something some small electronics company might want to look into. There is clearly money to be made. I’d pay US$250 for one right now.
 
Wavebender said:
I only have experience with the Leaf, but don’t other EVs use CHADEMO? I thought it was used by Nissan, Mitsubishi, Kia, Hyundai, and several Japanese market-only cars like BMW and Porsche. Those cars will be in use for many years to come. Seems like something some small electronics company might want to look into. There is clearly money to be made. I’d pay US$250 for one right now.
https://www.chademo.com/products/evs/ isn't complete.

Japanese market versions of BMW i3, VW e-Golf and Mercedes have CHAdeMO inlets. I doubt there's any CCS in Japan given there are 7700 CHAdEMO chargers there per https://www.chademo.com/, in a country about 89% (IIRC) the size of California. Also, CHAdeMO has supported V2x for ages, while CCS is finally getting there now.

Unfortunately, in the US, the only sold/leased as new vehicles in the US w/CHAdeMO now are Leaf and Outlander PHEV (Nissan owns a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors). Teslas can use it with a $400 adapter. EVgo has also been installing modified CHAdeMO to Tesla adapters at some of their sites: https://www.evgo.com/tesla/.

Also, can a mod move this to the right area? Website/forum discussions doesn't seem right.
 
cwerdna said:
Also, can a mod move this to the right area? Website/forum discussions doesn't seem right.
I reported this thread but it got closed and wasn't moved. I reported because https://www.mynissanleaf.com/index.php says this area is for "Questions/Comments/Suggestions about the website and forum go in here. This section is also for questions and info on how to use the My Nissan LEAF forum."

Seems like https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewforum.php?f=26 is the more appropriate area.
 
Some people have already done working CCS retrofits and offer them commercially (e.g. Muxsan).

I have started development on an open source version, more info to come soon.
 
Wavebender said:
Forgive me if this has been discussed, but I could not find anything on the site. Is a CHADEMO to CCS adapter available or even possible? Does CCS contain some proprietary chip that prevents it from accepting any available juice via an adapter to existing connectors?

CCS and Chademo have several differences that make an adapter challenging. One simple example.

CCS has the car locking the connection during charging. Chademo has the EVSE connector locking the connection during charging.

So a Chademo car and a CCS EVSE would require the adapter to pretend that it is CCS to the EVSE, and pretend that it is Chademo to the car, and would need to lock both connections. This would require a battery in the adapter large enough to drive both locks, along with a controller to pretend to both sides.

It gets more fun after this.
 
I would happily contribute to a Jumpstart/gofundme sort of initiative for a chademo/ccs adapter.

Thinking through it though, even at 1K a piece for the unit, the global market for such an adapter is probably only about 10,000 units (90% Leaf drivers). 10 million total revenue for a device that might cost 1/2 a million to design and develop before manufacturing costs is not going to attract too many investors.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
I would happily contribute to a Jumpstart/gofundme sort of initiative for a chademo/ccs adapter.

Thinking through it though, even at 1K a piece for the unit, the global market for such an adapter is probably only about 10,000 units (90% Leaf drivers). 10 million total revenue for a device that might cost 1/2 a million to design and develop before manufacturing costs is not going to attract too many investors.

Probably easier and cheaper to modify LEAFs to take CCS.
 
CCS and CHAdeMo use different communications protocols, it's not just a different plug.

CHAdeMO is known for their DC fast charging protocol for communication between the vehicle and the charging station (IEC/EN 61851-24, IEEE 2030.1. 1), OCA is responsible for the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP), which enables better communication between charging stations and charging station management systems.

CCS uses the PLC (Power Line Communications) protocol
 
OrientExpress said:
CCS and CHAdeMo use different communications protocols, it's not just a different plug.

Right; and although I am not positive, I vaguely seem to remember that different pins are used for the comm signals.
 
Here is a 240V to ChaDeMo / CCS (Europe CCS it looks like) portable charger.
https://www.evseadapters.com/products/portable-chademo-ccs-combo-dc-quick-charger/

I can't vouch for if it actually works, but you can see it's over +$3,400 just to convert 240V AC to the 500V DC needed to QC. This one only does 20 amps max.

It would take basically another "black box" of electronics to take the CCS, do all the protocol / port locking / etc. and then feed that voltage safely into something like this to pipe it back out to a ChaDeMo connection. So, probably another $3,000 in electronics and hardware to safely bridge that power over, and even then, maybe get 20 amps of ChaDeMo charging at best. To make the wires thick enough, relays big enough, to handle some 120 amps of current, I would suspect that just to create one unit for "CCS to ChaDeMo" might be nearly +$10,000 just in hardware alone, plus whatever software and electronics needed to be setup to make it all work together.

Not saying that all of that could not be *shrunk* down to a more portable and reliable size, but that anyone or any company that wanted to create such adapters would either have to make them lower power to reduce size and cost, so instead of a full power quick charge, maybe a half or quarter power QC? We know Tesla has already done a nice ChaDeMo to Tesla converter, that while is a good weighted size of plugs, can work at 50 kW in a fairly portable size. They sold them at $400 a piece.

If someone was selling a CCS to ChaDeMo adapter for a similar price (that could run at the full 50 kW power like Tesla) all in a fairly portable form factor, I think they would sell very well, but only if the price was low enough. The most amazing CCS to ChaDeMo adapter in the world isn't going to move if they are selling for +$5,000, someone would have to find a way to get the cost, waaaaayyyy, down. :D
 
I think our best hope is future access to Tesla superchargers with an adapter...but not sure how likely that access is going to be. If Tesla does it, it would certainly endear me to the brand.
 
SageBrush said:
OrientExpress said:
CCS and CHAdeMo use different communications protocols, it's not just a different plug.

Right; and although I am not positive, I vaguely seem to remember that different pins are used for the comm signals.
While I agree with all that, I also thought I remember reading that the Setec Tesla CCS adapter pretended to be a CHAdeMO adapter to the car. If true, it would mean somehow has the know-how.
 
Dala said:
Some people have already done working CCS retrofits and offer them commercially (e.g. Muxsan).

I have started development on an open source version, more info to come soon.

If anyone can figure it out you can.........your videos are very informative and full of great info,
Thank you :D
 
I just purchased a nissan leaf. And realized USA is slowly phasing out chademo. Will nissan do something about that for the buyers who already have a car with chademo. Like an adapter or something. the way tesla did.
 
Welcome. That is the hope. At worst, there are people working on open source and aftermarket adapters, so by the time Chademo gets seriously decrepit, you should be able to use CCS.

I'll move this topic to the existing one tomorrow.
 
Tanbiis said:
Will nissan do something about that for the buyers who already have a car with chademo. Like an adapter or something. the way tesla did.
I think the chance of that is pretty much zero.

As for 3rd party, I think it at least possible. The tougher questions are whether they will be consumer grade and at a price you will want to pay. Dala from Finland (find his threads in this forum) is working on installing a BMW CCS charger in a LEAF as another charging port. It is an amazing project but I would not hold my breath on it ever coming to the USA.

The upcoming Tesla adapter for CCS is a (relatively) simple, passive device because Tesla outfits each compatible car with a circuit board that handles the translation matrix and power electronics. So far as I know, Nissan did not design the LEAF to have an upgrade pathway; if anything, the opposite is true.
 
Tanbiis said:
I just purchased a nissan leaf. And realized USA is slowly phasing out chademo. Will nissan do something about that for the buyers who already have a car with chademo. Like an adapter or something. the way tesla did.

Yep. Got that scheduled right after the "fix 3G sunset" problem :lol:
 
Back
Top