Metabo HPT has launched a new tabless MultiVolt cordless power tool battery in the USA, called T-PWR.
Tabless Li-ion battery cells feature a new continuous electrode design, rather than bottlenecking “tabs” found in older style cylindrical Li-ion battery cells. This results in lower internal resistance and in turn greater power delivery and cooler operation.
Metabo HPT is launching a single tabless battery into their MultiVolt platform, with charge capacities of 8Ah when used with their 18V tools, and 4Ah when use with their 36V tools.
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Like their competitors, Metabo HPT is advertising that their tabless batteries deliver 50% more power, faster working, and longer runtime.
According to this comparison chart, the new MultiVolt tabless battery can deliver a maximum output of 2160 Watts, compared to 1080 Watts for their 5Ah battery, and 1440 Watts for their existing 8Ah battery.
Metabo HPT and Hikoki marketing videos – they’re the same brand, just with different names for USA and international regions – demonstrate significant performance differences for the new tabless battery compared to earlier MultiVolt batteries with older-style Li-ion cells.
Basically, the new HPT tabless battery is an instant-upgrade for a slew of tools with high power demands, resulting in faster performance and application speeds.
Similar has been advertised by other brands that have also released tabless cell batteries, including Dewalt, Milwaukee, Makita, Bosch (EU, not USA), and Ryobi.
It’s good to see more cordless power tool brands join the tabless cell battery club, but there are still a couple that haven’t yet.
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Price: $199
At the time of this posting, the price of the older-style battery has been reduced to $140. It’s unclear whether the new tabless battery will be replacing the older-style 8Ah battery, but most brands have been doing exactly that.
Perhaps this also explains why Metabo HPT was bundling so many tools with older-style 8Ah batteries and starter sets this holiday season.
Farkleberry
Shouldn’t they be called T-less-PWR? NO-T-POWER?
Oh well, Hikoki and naming, I probably shouldn’t get started.
I have some compact really older style batteries (no charge meter) that were made in 22, so I doubt they’ll be switching over wholesale any time soon.
They do have some crazy promotions at odd times. I didn’t see too much on Amazon this year, some good nailer deals. Acme had some amazing deals way before Black Friday, and Lowes had a ridiculous deal on Thanksgiving, then not much.
I have read one or two complaints on here about batteries heating up, but I haven’t had any problems, nor heard of problems during tool tests.
I think part of this is many of their tools are more lightweight vs class leading power. It will be interesting to see if they start bringing out new higher draw tools to leverage the tabless capability.
They do have a heat gun, and several vacuums, but I’m not sure they haven’t designed them to limit the draw for tabbed cells.
They have a new line of OPE – that seems like an area that could benefit. Hopefully they’ll import them eventually.
Robert
Farkleberry, I’m sure the engineer named it in the drawings “T-less PWR.” But marketing had a heart attack over any connotation of less power.
Farkleberry
My acme promo batteries are 2024 (looks like week 30?)
My lowes promo battery is 2021, no dust on package.
Goodie
Really happy to see Metabo HPT get tabless batteries; they seem to be knocking it out of the park lately. A little slower to announce than Dewalt and Milwaukee, but they are using their resources wisely and releasing tools at a good clip and getting the right battery tech. So happy they have Multivolt capability – there’s so many tools where 18v is superior and others where 36v mkes sense. All in one platform.
I’ve had no issues with Metabo HPT batteries, or with power from their tools. I agree in general with the brand favoring “lightweight” tools approach vs class leading power. However, the HPT 36v recip saw, 1/2″ impact wrench, bolt impact driver, and rear handled 7 1/4″ circ saw, and 36v router are all solid contenders in their category.
Chris
Maybe this will encourage Dewalt to come out with tabless flexvolt batteries. Pouch style flexvolt batteries would be awesome as well.
Stuart
Don’t count on pouch style FlexVolt batteries – it’s impractical compared to tabless.
Goodie
Stuart, this is a bit of an odd-ball question… Are the Multivolt batteries good candidates for pouch style batteries? If not, does it make sense for Metabo HPT to release 18v only pouch style batteries?
I could certainly see using 18v pouch style batteries with my 18v triple hammer or single handled recip saw.
Stuart
Hypothetically: 18V? Yes. 36V? No.
Goodie
Thanks, great answer to my hypothetical question. You’ve put a lot of effort into learning about these batteries and I appreciate your perspective.
Stuart
The difficulty is in navigating between what’s possible, what’s practical, and what’s marketable.
18V pouch cell batteries are possible and practical. For Metabo HPT, would they marketable? That’s a firm “maybe?” although I wouldn’t be optimistic.
36V pouch cell batteries are possible, but I don’t think they’d be practical.
There’s a lot of guessing involved.
Goodie
I agree the pouches don’t make as much sense for HPT from a marketing perspective. Their current 18v batteries seem to work pretty well for them, and I like the simplicity of their battery line-up compared to the biggest players (DeWalt and Milwaukee).
MM
Stihl has a 36V 9.4ah pouch cell battery on the market for their OPE, model no AP500S. That suggests it is absolutely possible to make something ilke a Flexvolt or Multivolt pouch cell pack. If the tech can run pro chainsaws it can surely handle these applications. That would be the equivalent of a “17ah” Flexvolt pack, or “9.4/18.8” MultiVolt.
will
Why os it impractical,I’m genuinely curious what the limits are for pouch style,or is it cost? Also is tabless just mean that the little tab is missing? How does that allow more power? Does the tab itself restrict the flow of current, or am I way off base? Thanks for the hard work. I’d love to see a head to head of the new high end drills since dewalt has stepped up their game with the new drill. They finally can compete with Milwaukee and makita in power,even though the previous drill was probably more power than 99% of people need.
Stuart
In a nutshell, a tabbed battery is like a 4 lane highway converging to go through a single lane toll booth, and a tabless battery has a toll booth for each lane. Which style would you think has greater throughput?
HmmmDusty
But we are talking pouch batteries, not tabbed. Why wouldn’t pouch style work for multivolt? They certainly don’t suffer from low output if DeWalts offerings are to go by.
will
Right I understand what tabless offers from reading comments on here,but the tab itself is causing these restrictions or is there more to it than just the tab? If thats the case they could’ve easily gone tabless years ago.
MM
@will
I think the idea of making a “tabless” style cell has been known for a very long time, but manufacturing them economically was what took so long. I remember buying TRT InfiniCaps for a project 25 years ago–those are “tabless” wound film capacitors whereas most film capacitors are “tabbed”–and I’m sure something similar existed long before then. I suspect the tab design was used for batteries for so long because it is easier to manufacture and because tab construction wasn’t much of a bottleneck until more modern cell designs with more power were developed.
Stuart
@Dusty, you would need too many cells to reach 36V. That means larger size and higher cost vs using tabless cells, not to mention complex engineering to get around poorer thermal dissipation.
@Will, it seems you’re referring to the button top of the battery. What I’m referring to are the connections within the battery.
(As an aside, there are also flat-top tabbed-cell batteries.)
There are some graphics here: https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/bosch-18v-tabless-battery/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Tabless batteries really have full/continuous tab construction.
This is not an easy subject, as it involves getting into battery engineering. I’ll see what I can do to simplify things in a new post.
AP
Dec 12, 2024
I’d sure like to see more M12 options like this.
will
I’d love to see milwaukee go with a slide on style of battery for the m1q platform. They could do like dewalt did with an adapter. Even still I imagine alot of people would be angry, but nows the time to rip the bandaid off. Those pouch style batteries seem taylor made for the 12v series.
Farkleberry
Is anyone releasing 18650 tabless packs, either 5 or 10 cell?
I know the cells themselves are currently rare.
Is this pouch territory?
AFAIK very few of the HPT tools came with 10×18650 packs, and all the promos I can ever remember came with 21700 or 5×18650 compact packs.
The 10×18650 packs are quite handy, wish I had more.
I get that they’re already down on power delivery vs 21700, just wondering if you could have a 18650 tabless pack that approximates a tabbed 21700 pack for delivery (not run time)?
I haven’t had issues with the 18650, but switch to 21700 if I’m going to be hammering on something and just deal with the weight/bulk.
Stuart
No, only 21700.
CoBlue
>Is anyone releasing 18650 tabless packs, either 5 or 10 cell?
>I know the cells themselves are currently rare.
Is anyone even currently manufacturing 18650 tabless cells?
Farkleberry
There are reports of a tabless 18650 from EVE called the 30PL.
There are also a couple other sizes mentioned around (26mm, 34mm?), but mostly it’s 21700 and the 46mm for EV’s, etc. I’m wondering when we’ll see the 46mm for large OPE, etc.?
The 4680 are like the size of a small soda can.
Stuart
I cannot find any official announcements about any tabless 18650 cell from EVE, only a forum post claiming such a battery is in development. Do you have an official source for info about the 30PL?
At this time, the cordless power tool industry is only using tabless cells in 21700 size.
Farkleberry
If you Google search EVE 30PL there are a couple Chinese sites with the writeup and what looks like a photo from a branded booth at a trade show. I wasn’t there and can’t verify the authenticity. Hopefully EVE would respond to questions.
Here’s a portion of the writeup, Google translated from Chinese:
Charging Head Network’s innovative battery technology helps the development of the power tool industry. Yiwei launches 18650 30PL full-lug cell battery trading network May 20, 2024 Foreword On March 20, Yiwei Lithium Energy was released under the theme of “Extreme Innovation, Green Future” At the conference, the new high-magnification, high-capacity all-pole product 18650 was released for the first time in the world. 30PL battery cell. At the conference, Li Maoqi, manager of Yiwei Lithium Energy V Cylindrical Battery Research Institute, released for the first time the new 18650 30PL full-pole lug product, which closely meets the needs of the global power tool market, directly addresses the development pain points of the tool industry, and empowers the industry to accelerate its advancement into high-tech, The era of high intelligence, high security and high reliability. 18650 independently developed by Yiwei Lithium Energy 30PL uses an innovative design with an all-lug battery structure, which can effectively reduce battery impedance and increase battery power. While achieving overall lightweight and miniaturization, the energy density is as high as 249Wh/kg, can achieve 8min ultra-fast charging, and supports up to 60A. Continuous discharge, 30A continuous discharge time is increased by 100%, 40A high-rate cycle is 600 cycles, supports -40°C discharge, meets product long cycle requirements, and comprehensively improves user experience. Innovative battery technology helps the development of the power tool industry.
Could be a typo, the reporter meaning to say 21700, but the EVE designation for those is apparently 40PL.
Big Richard
Ampace just debuted their JP30 18650 yesterday, 12Dec. Not quite as powerful as the tablesss 21700s, but they are rating it at 36A continuous compared to 20-25A of most 18650s out there. It is on par with some of the OG 21700s, like the venerable Samsung 30T.
For those unfamiliar, its bigger brother the JP40 21700 is the cell used by Milwaukee in their 8Ah and 12Ah Forge batteries, as well as DeWalt in their 4Ah and 8Ah PowerPack batteries.
https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr-newswire/20241210cn76169/ampaces-jp30-cylindrical-lithium-battery-will-debut-on-12th-dec-unleashing-a-new-era-of-powerful-technology
I would love to see brands 12v lines leverage them, I could see Milwaukee using them in a M12 Forge.
André
There is a video on Youtube where a guyz opens a Hikoki T-PWR, a Makita XGT and a Milwaukee Forge .. what he noticed is that the Hikoki’s had the cheapest cells ( chinese brand EVE) and the construction/electrical connections seemed not has good has the others .
Wich is a bummer
Also looking at the battery pictured why would Metabo HTP use that old battery design for the T-PWR for us here in America when all the Hikoki’s T-PWR uses the new design with dust and water protection and rubber base ..
Also disapointing
Kompahko
These new batteries might make their 36v table saw able to work. The compressor, router, sds max and vacuum will also benefit greatly.
I think these new batteries are crucial for their survival
Clay
Metabo HPT really seems to be bringing it. Think you might need to add them to your Brands drop down list.
Big Richard
Appreciation for putting actual Watt output in the marketing, instead of “PWR4” or “50% more power* than battery xyz”.