CHAdeMO Officially Recognized as International DC Charging Standard by IEC

CHAdeMO Association announced a major milestone as the CHAdeMO protocol is now officially recognized as an international DC charging standard by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) alongside Combo plugs for U.S. and Europe and Chinese GB/T plug.

"Since 2009, following the commercialization of the new generation of EVs that were fast chargeable using the innovative CHAdeMO technology, CHAdeMO Association members have been taking an active role in the IEC technical committees 61851-23, -24, as well as 62196-3 in order to drive the consensus approach of international standardisation. After 4 years of expert meetings, in January 2014, the FDIS (final draft international standard) for 61851-23 and -24 were approved by the committees and were finally published on the IEC website yesterday."

Both IEC documents can be found and bought here for €290.- and €190.-

"IEC 61851-23:2014, gives the requirements for d.c. electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, herein also referred to as "DC charger", for conductive connection to the vehicle, with an a.c. or d.c. input voltage up to 1 000 V a.c. and up to 1 500 V d.c. according to IEC 60038. It provides the general requirements for the control communication between a d.c. EV charging station and an EV. The requirements for digital communication between d.c. EV charging station and electric vehicle for control of d.c. charging are defined in IEC 61851-24."

"IEC 61851-24:2014, together with IEC 61851-23, applies to digital communication between a d.c. EV charging station and an electric road vehicle (EV) for control of d.c. charging, with an a.c. or d.c. input voltage up to 1 000 V a.c. and up to 1 500 V d.c. for the conductive charging procedure. The EV charging mode is mode 4, according to IEC 61851-23. Annexes A, B, and C give descriptions of digital communications for control of d.c. charging specific to d.c. EV charging systems A, B and C as defined in Part 23."

So now we have 3, or rather 4, different systems - Japan (System A), GB/T by China (B), COMBO1 by the US and COMBO2 by Germany (C) - plus another two from Tesla (different plug in U.S. and Europe), which will require from automaker to produce plug-in vehicles with different DC inlets for different markets:

• In U.S. there is CHAdeMO and Combo1 plus dedicated Tesla plug.
• In Europe there is CHAdeMO and Combo2 plus dedicated Tesla plug, but different then in U.S. (based on AC Type 2 connector).
• In China there is GB/T.
• In Japan there is CHAdeMO plus maybe some Tesla Superchargers with Tesla plugs in the future.

Hopefully, nobody introduces another type of inlet and plug in Africa, South America and Australia.  There's more than enough standardized plugs/inlets out there already.

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