In the 90's charging EV's was
In the 90's charging EV's was a mess. Each manufacturer had their own 'standard'. We do this time around have a Level 2 standard worldwide. Yippie!!
However the fast charging does not have a universally agreed standard and is in danger of repeating the charging confusion that stymied EV's back in the 90's. Standards organizations are slow to ratify standards, Nissan and Mitsubishi at least have deployed fast charging and as a result ChaDemo is a de-facto standard right now. Tesla have their own proprietary quick charge standard for the S and X models.
Until Ford or GM actually announce a vehicle with fast charge capability, the SAE standard is irrelevant. Now there is a de-facto standard so SAE *should* design the communication between vehicle and charger to be compatible with the ChaDemo standard so EV'ers can use adapters. My guess is they will make it totally incompatible and we will see a standards war in the US. The consumer confusion will deter EV adoption.
Companies that make Level 3 EVSE's will be torn between meeting the needs of current EV's on the road and the promise of newer models in the future. This will only serve to drive their costs up until a winning standard emerges. Will EVSE manufacturers 'choose sides' or will they put two connectors on every EVSE, those chunky Level 3 cables and plugs don't look cheap.
If the SAE standard wins, the value of the ChaDeMo port on Mitsubishi and Nissan EV's will become increasingly worthless and retrofit is unlikely to be cheap if even it is made available.
What a mess.