I'm very pleased with the build quality and performance of my 2020 Nissan LEAF SV. But there's just one problem Nissan, like all other Japanese EV makers, equipped my LEAF with two charging ports. First, there's the Universal (except for Tesla) J1772 plug, sometimes referred to as a "J-plug". This connector is for slow charging at home, office, or what Tesla calls "destination charging". You plug in when you're going to be somewhere for several hours. The small charging pillars you see sprinkled here and there use this plug (except for Tesla) and charging at such a station is usually, but not always, cheap or even free. Nice, laid back lifestyle unless you're on an intercity road trip to see Grandma or your neurosurgeon. Then you need a quick charge. Enter the second charging port. Here in North America, all the manufacturers and the government settled on a single quick charging port standard, the CCS1. Except Tesla. Tesla decided to wall off its cars and customers from the rest of the EV world. Until recently, that is, when Tesla agreed to open parts of its Supercharging Network to other manufacturers. Ford and Chevy fell in line and the Tesla Standard got renamed the North American Charging Standard. Turns out the proprietary Tesla standard is similar to CCS1 and you can get adapters to convert one to the other. Problem solved. Except Nissan. CHAdeMO isn't easily adapted and the LEAF is the sole major EV model that uses it! Even Nissan abandoned it with their new Aryia EV SUV. Here in New Mexico, ChargePoint gets most of the fast charging business (and most of the slow charging business too outside people's garages) and their new fast chargers have CHAdeMO connections as well as CCS1. But not for long, friends. Chargepoint has a replacement cable for their fast chargers that substitutes a Tesla connection for CHAdeMO. Now I know how 8 track and Betamax users felt!
A fellow somewhere in Eastern Europe or somewhere developed a CCS1 to CHAdeMO device, less an "adapter" and more of a computer based spoofing device. It's said to work fairly well most of the time and costs a thousand dollars a copy. It gets software updates from time to time. It's also big and heavy.
