The story behind Biladapter.no

Who are we, and why do we only sell one product in the online store?

We currently only sell one product, and that is this CCS-to-CHADEMO adapter. The motivation for selling this is to give as many cars in Norway as possible that cannot charge at CCS charging stations the opportunity to "get a new life".

My name is Terje Oegema, and I am the owner of an XPENG G3. This car has CHAdeMO as the charging standard and I bought this brand new car knowing the limitations this would entail. I have taken the car on holiday to the Netherlands three years in a row, and each year I could see that there were fewer and fewer CHAdeMO charging options along the roads.

In the summer of 2024, I really noticed the decline of this old standard when many of the old charging stations had been replaced with new lightning chargers that did not have CHAdeMO at all. It was a big difference from previous years. Some chargers were not even updated in the charging maps, so I got "false" hits on CHAdeMO stations that no longer existed.

The first searches I did on the internet for chademo adapters only yielded hits that said they didn't exist, that it was technically "impossible" to make, and that the scope was too small for anyone to want to try to make such an adapter. I had almost given up hope of ever being able to charge my car with CCS. I stood in a charging queue at the old, lonely charging post with one CHAdeMO connector, enviously, while there were dozens of new, available CCS stations right across the street.

Then one fine day, the internet search finally came up with a hit that someone in Finland was working on a project to make electronics that could make CHAdeMO and CCS talk to each other. A big suitcase with lots of wires and a battery and a computer. Before this was completed, news came that the Chinese had managed to develop an adapter where the computer and electronics and battery were miniaturized in one and the same unit.

Finally, the dream of charging my car at CCS stations could become a reality. I had even considered selling my car because of this before this news came out at the end of 2023. Would we suddenly be able to charge our Leafs and G3s and other CHAdeMO cars on Tesla's charging network, or on Ionity, Uno-X and all the other big charging parks? It seemed that way.

I ordered an adapter as soon as a dealer appeared in Europe. It was Autonlaturit.com in Finland. I contacted the seller and offered to test the adapter in Norway. I had been following the internet for a while and read that even though these were now on sale, the software was not yet well enough developed for it to work everywhere.

During a lot of testing over many months, the software has matured and together with everyone else who has contributed to the testing, the product is now recommended to all car owners who want to charge their car at CCS stations.

But there were no "real" retailers in Norway selling such adapters from a Norwegian online store that does not require the customer to clear customs and pay VAT to receive the product. The problem with many online stores that look Norwegian is that they are actually located abroad and thus the goods must be cleared through customs in Norway and the VAT is subsequently invoiced to the customer.

And if the product needs service or return to the foreign seller, it must be cleared through customs and possibly back into Norway again. There is a lot of "paperwork" for the customer. After all, the adapter is quite expensive since it is full of advanced electronics, so you would like to make a safe purchase in a store subject to Norwegian law and not least the Consumer Purchase Act.

This was also the thought of the owner of the Finnish online store that I had had some contact with in connection with the testing. He had noticed my enthusiasm for this adapter and asked if I would help him sell it in Norway, from a Norwegian online store.

I immediately agreed to this. Not to make a lot of money, because this market is not big enough for that. But after all, there is still a large proportion of Nissan Leaf and other cars on Norwegian roads that can get an "extended life" and new use value when this adapter can be used to charge on CCS.

And when these cars one day disappear from the roads, this online store will probably also cease to exist, unless some other brilliant products have come onto the market that "I just have to" share with you!

- Terje Oegema