German associations want international CCS standard for heavy commercial vehicles

Germany’s Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) and the technology association VDE want to promote standardisation for the rapid charging of heavy commercial vehicles building on CCS, also internationally.

In order to accelerate the spread of electric trucks and other heavy commercial vehicles, including vessels and aeroplanes, for example, the Automotive Standards Committee (VDA|NA Automobil), which is supported by the VDA, and the VDE-supported standards organisation VDE|DKE, want to define standards for a new charging system designed to meet the requirements of such vehicles.

“The charging capacities currently achievable in the passenger car sector via the Combined Charging System (CCS) do not meet the requirements of commercial vehicles in all applications,” says Ralf Petri, Head of Mobility and Logistics at VDE and Head of the Mobility Department at VDE|DKE. “Larger traction batteries, for example, require high charging capacities. With CCS1 (in the USA) and CCS2 (in Europe), the highest possible charging capacity is currently 500 kW, while the fastest charging stations on the market offer 350 kW.

Requirements from the industry were identified in an initial workshop in order to quickly create the necessary standards on the vehicle and charging infrastructure side. In principle, the new charging interface should be based on the “proven” CCS, but “adaptations and additional standards for a powerful plug-in connection” would have to be developed.

This should not only take into account requirements from the truck sector but also from construction machinery, electric aircraft or electric marine vessels – in this way the standard should be able to be used across sectors. In addition, the economic and safety aspects of manual and automatically wired charging should also be taken into account. “Plugging in by the driver or a charging robot should therefore also be taken into account, as well as the specifications of the employer’s liability insurance association and regionally and internationally valid limit values,” says Petri.

As if that weren’t enough points in the specifications, VDA and VDE are still striving for “close cooperation with North American industry” and the standardisation bodies there. First of all, the technical specifications of the new connector will have to be defined. At the same time, the necessary changes to existing standards on the vehicle and charging infrastructure side will be worked out nationally in order to provide the international committees “with the most complete ‘solution modules’ possible for the IEC and ISO standards concerned,” says Egbert Fritzsche, Managing Director of VDA|NA Automobil.

While VDA and VDE still want to define such a charging standard, the industry is already working on corresponding truck solutions. The CharIN initiative was founded by German car manufacturers and suppliers and now has more than 150 members from all over the world, including Tesla. One of the current projects is a truck charging standard designed for at least two megawatts of charging power.

vde.com (in German)