CHAdeMO and Chinese GB/T could harmonize into a single standard. Imagine that!

Almost shocking news comes to us from Asia, where two fast charging standards - the Japanese CHAdeMO and Chinese GB/T could be harmonized into a single next-generation ultra-fast charging standard with backward compatibility to older CHAdeMO and GB/T cars.

The Memorandum of Understanding between CHAdeMO Association and the China Electricity Council (CEC) for co-development of a joint standard is to be signed on August 28th in Beijing, China with the green light from governments of both countries.

Chinese CEC decided to unify with CHAdeMO because the two standards are rather similar and utilize CAN for communication between the charger and the car, while the CCS Combo is utilizing PLC (there are two different types of CCS, that weren't unified even by the CCS alliance of manufacturers).

It's not yet known what level of performance would be offered by the new standard. CHAdeMO recently engaged 2.0 with up to 400 kW.

Because the Chinese market is the world's largest and CHAdeMO is still very popular worldwide (over 18,500 chargers installed), the new standard with backward compatibility will be a very strong contender against CCS combo.

New GB/T Fast Charging Standard

More about the project in the press release:

CHAdeMO to sign an MoU with China Electricity Council (CEC) for co-development of next generation ultra-fast EV charging standard, which is expected to lead the way towards a single harmonised future standard, all the while ensuring backward compatibility with both current CHAdeMO and GB/T standards