Energica Adds CHAdeMO Fast Charging Compatibility To 2021 Bikes

Fast-charge your Energica any way you like.

Feb 1, 2021 at 12:01pm ET

2 min read

Making the move from a piston-powered bike to an electric one involves some planning. Gas station infrastructure is extremely well-established, but your daily routine will clearly need to change along with your fuel source. Both CCS and CHAdeMO DC fast-charging systems have expanded their footprints worldwide, but the existence of two standards further complicates things.

If an electric vehicle company wants to reach the most customers, what should it do? The simple answer in 2021 is clearly “why not have both?” That’s exactly the answer that Energica went with for its 2021 model lineup. All 2021 models will now feature both CCS and CHAdeMO compatibility, so you can easily access fast charging in more places—such as Japan, where Energica is currently expanding.

Both the CCS and CHAdeMO sockets are located next to one another, tucked neatly under the saddle of 2021 Energicas.

“We have internally developed a new control unit to manage the dialogue between the vehicle and the CHAdeMO charging station. This system manages the exchange of information to initialize the charge, stop it, together with all the CHADEMO protocol needs,” Energica CTO Giampiero Testoni said in a statement.

“Our existing VCU (Vehicle Control Unit) has been adapted to be able to implement the dialogue with the newly developed control unit. This interaction is fundamental to guarantee the technical demands of this standard,” he continued.

What about charge time differences between the two standards? Per Energica, they should be on par with one another. Quoted times are as follows:

Fast Charge DCFC – Mode 4: 400 km / h or 6.7 km / min (248.5 mph or 4.1 miles per minute)
Slow Charge Charge – Mode 2 or 3: 63.5 km / h (39.45 mph)

Energica notes that these are test times from its own internal testing. The company plans further interoperability testing at the Joint Research Center in Ispra to ensure that CHAdeMO charging works properly everywhere.

CHAdeMO and the Chinese Electricity Council started a global push for a single ultrafast EV charging protocol in 2018. This project, which has a working name of ChaoJi, is still currently under development as of 2020. Until and unless a universal EV charging standard is adapted throughout the industry, chances are good that Energica won’t be the last company to take a dual-standard approach.