Energica announce their adoption of CHAdeMO Charging system in addition to CCS charging port, a first for electric motorcycles worldwide.
Energica announce in a press release late this January, they will expand their commercial offerings, with the inclusion of the CHAdeMO charging system on Energica MY2021 motorcycles.
Energica is the first manufacturer of electric motorcycles to have both major international protocols on charging systems. The current global market use 2 major protocols for fast-charging: CCS and CHAdeMO.
There are two non-proprietary DC fast charging types of connectors that are used in the United States (other than Tesla’s proprietary system): the SAE Combined Charging System (CCS), CHAdeMO. Both offer safe fast charging with high capacity using an electrical structure of several pins for control lines, power lines and CAN bus line – Basically a protocol of electrical engineering wits to allow fast charging your battery without overheating and blowing it up.
So what is CHAdeMO anyway? CHArge de MOve (CHAdeMO), is the trademark name for a DC charging standard. CHAdeMO is essentially a global DC fast charging protocol for electric vehicles. In the US over 2,600 charging stations use CHAdeMO and nearly 2,400 stations use CCS connector. But when it comes to individual outlets, there are more CCS outlets (over 5,000) than CHAdeMO outlets (close to 4,000) according to the US DOE.
As the press release stated, despite the pandemic year, they have not paused or hindered their R&D activities. The Energica technical team developed the CHAdeMO charging system specifically for the Energica MY2021 range within a few months.
Since the inception of the Energica project, we embraced the combined charging system (CCS) as standard.
We were true pioneers, the only electric motorcycle manufacturer to integrate DC fast charging technology into its products.
We are delighted to have paved the way for other brands that have followed our path. Today we have also joined the second global standard, CHAdeMO. In this way, we are not only responding to the needs of the Japanese market we’ve just entered, but to any customer around the world who prefers this recharging system
Giampiero Testoni, CTO Energica Motor Company S.p.A.
The team developed their new control unit to fully manage the charging to fully manage the dialog with the charging system. This update also comes with a VCU (Vehicle Control Unit) update to also fit the needs for the new system. The new motorcycles by Energica will have the new fitted CHAdeMO charging socket, and will be placed right next to the CCS on the bikes.
Charging times are identical as for the CCS Combo standard:
- Fast Charge DCFC – Mode 4: 400 km / h or 6.7 km / min
- Slow Charge Charge – Mode 2 or 3: 63.5 km / h
Energica tested internally the MY2021 motorcycles equipped with CHAdeMO and will continue testing:
to verify dialogue with the CHAdeMO system will be carried out at the Joint Research Center at Ispra to ensure the compatibility of Energica motorcycles with all CHAdeMO charging columns in use globally.
This signals a great option for adoption of Energica motorcycles across more regions, where different standards of charging like CHAdeMO may be more used. For obvious reasons of expanding manufacturing and delivery to include more regions, and provide an off-the-shelf solution for both of the leading charging systems.
Sources: Energica, CHAdeMO, US Department of Energy