Metabo will soon be launching 2 new 18V cordless power tool batteries, and both with feature tabless Li-ion cells.
Metabo says that their new LiHDX batteries will deliver “power to the ultimate level,” with “even better performance, longer runtimes, and faster charging times” than their LiHD batteries.
They say users can expect to “handle difficult tasks easier and more quickly – from grinding to drilling and sawing” and that the new batteries deliver “up to 85% longer runtime.”
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The new 8Ah battery is said to deliver 1,800 watts, and was developed to tackle “the toughest applications.”
There will also be a new 4Ah battery that’s said to deliver 900 watts.
Metabo says that the compact LiHDX battery will “show its strength over common two-row batteries.”
Metabo says that their 8Ah battery can recharge in around 30 minutes with their 16A ASC 290 quick charger.
They add that the charger “works with all classes and charges anything at 110V or 240V, from a 20W USB-C to the 12V to 35V battery pack.”
It looks like the USB-C charger is at the front.
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And yes, you read that right – the 16A charger can recharge the Metabo LiHDX 8Ah battery in just 30 minutes. Metabo says this is twice as fast as with their ASC 145 charger and the LiHD 8Ah battery.
As a reminder, Metabo’s 18V cordless power tool system is at the heart of a collaborative Cordless Alliance (CAS). I’d expect the new batteries to be fully compatible with any tools that were also compatible with the LiHD 4Ah and 8Ah batteries.
ETA: September 2024 (Europe)
USA availability has not yet been announced.
Thank you Richard for the heads-up!!
Discussion
While Metabo’s announcement follows news from Bosch, Dewalt, Makita, Milwaukee, Ridgid, Ryobi, and maybe another brand or two that I missed, tabless battery cells are still very much new to the market.
Cordless power tool batteries with tabless Li-ion cells tend to be capable of delivering more power, cooler operation, and greater longevity, and it looks like Metabo’s are no different.
Doug N
Good to hear this. Metabo has some great Germany-made tools, including a three speed drill with 4000rpm. Better specs than Festool and a lower price. Too bad they’re almost invisible at suppliers, even Acme.
fred
Will the ASC 290 charger be made available in the US?
Stuart
The batteries and charger have only been announced in Europe thus far.
That said, I don’t see why they wouldn’t launch here.
As with many cordless power tool brands that aren’t headquartered in the USA, it’ll probably be a matter of time.
It seems that the charger was designed to operate with global voltages, with just the cord being different, and so they might not need a huge production run to justify US availability.
John
Queue all the people who don’t know the difference between Metabo and Metabo HPT 😉
fred
And that may be just why KKR decided not to use the HiKoki name in the USA – when Hitachi would not allow them to continue with their name. When KKR acquired the 2 companies – I thought that the naming would lead to confusion and lost sales. Now I’m not sure. The tool cognoscenti certainly know the difference and others who buy a German Metabo tool – thinking that it will work with their Mertabo-HPT battery will either return it – or buy a new battery and charger – adding to KKR’s revenue.
CMF
I still see reviews on Amazon, HD. and other websites where the user gave a 1 star. Why? Because the tool did not come with a battery. Without getting into the value of these reviews, I would say that the “tool cognoscenti” need to be qualified.
There are still many “in the know” tool people that are surprised or baffled at the HPT batteries not working with non HPT batteries.
Heck, I know so called tool people who have never heard of Metabo; HPT or non HPT. A guy down the street from me in his mid 60’s, raced cars, rebuilt classics, currently working on one, and has ton of tools, never heard of Metabo before he saw mine.
Fred, I know you are older than me, and probably more knowledgeable & wiser, but I would say to never assume what people know anything.
fred
Hitachi (Japan) had a much larger presence in the US market than did Metabo (Germany). Hitachi pneumatic nail guns were among the best in the US market – and their routers and chop saws were a good and economic alternative to other brands. I, who bought my first tools in the 1950’s, took no notice of either brand for many years. Our plumbers did not seem to use either brand of tool. I was introduced to Hitachi nail guns when I bought into a remodeling business. Years later. when my partners and I bought a struggling metalworking/fabrication business – we were introduced to Metabo – although we at first did not know how to pronounce the name.
CMF
Yes, pneumatic air guns, Hitachi had quite the name.
All their cordless struggled. About the only category they also had a bit of a name, was with rotary hammers, below Bosch, maybe close or on par with Makita for popular power tool brands. And of course in the less common tool brands but definitely tops in rotary hammers were brands like Hilti, Kengo and others that escape me at the moment.
fred
I hadn’t thought of Kango in a long time. We had an electric Kango Breaker (jackhammer). Not quite up to our Atlas-Copco pneumatics – but you didn’t have to tow the compressor out to break up a stoop and walkway
Mattionals
Speaking of Metabo HPT, Hikoki NZ is showing off the 4AH/8AH Multivolt with tabless 21700 cells. They are calling it T-PWR.
bg100
In the bottom right corner of the CAS lineup pic, there appears to be a DeWalt laser, maybe DW089LG. Is DeWalt part of the Cordless Alliance? I thought it was just European brands.
MM
I think that is a Stabila, they also use yellow-and-black colors.
Jason M
Interestingly shown on the cover of the catalog but then not listed in the catalog. Definitely not Dewalt though
https://cordless-alliance-system.com/assets/public/pdfs/CAS_Brochuere-2024_GB.pdf
DONAL RODGERS
Good see all Metabo using the new 21700 tabless cells. Does anyone think manufacturers will go down the same route with tabless 18650 cells? (If they even exist). I think they would give my Milwaukee M12 tools a great boost in performance.
Stuart
The last time I asked a brand about this, they said there were no tabless 18650 cells yet. There is no indication whether there’s even enough demand for it.
DONAL RODGERS
Thanks Stuart for your reply. Maybe, there is not as big as an advantage going tablets for smaller sells. The two rows of 18650 cells form factor I.e your 5 amp battery. Is by far the most common type of battery. You could say it is like the Goldilocks size or battery. Not too big and still powerful enough to get most jobs done. DeWalt has recently been promoting there new 8 amp battery with tabless cells In the promotion videos it shows the new impact driver with the new 8 amp battery. In my opinion just looks silly far to big. Surely if there was a power improvement to the most common form factor of battery by using tabless cells this would be Ideal for users and should have great demand!
JR Ramos
I don’t think it will ever happen unless a) some China factory decides to give it a shot, and b) they can actually manufacture it correctly and consistently. 18650 is by no means “dead” just yet but for the power we want it’s just limited and topped out some years ago other than experiments with some new types of anode materials. The advantage of tabless is the voltage maintenance/more power to push out and a little lower heat buildup, but since the 18650 canister size is limited in what can be stuffed in there (even assuming the current CID designs could still be used) we’d be left with high punch quick-emptying cells and there’s probably not too many applications where that would be advantageous…might require more banks in packs to regain some run time. But 21700 was invented for greater power delivery and capacity, which it does very well at, so it’s become the norm over the last 8 years or so (not in the power tool industry…) and far outshines anything the best versions of 18650 have been able to deliver in different types of cells. As 21700 has matured as a platform, there’s been some push to adopt even larger cells for some applications but we’ll never see those in handheld tools I think. So, really doubtful that tabless will move “backwards” to smaller sizes and it certainly won’t come from the majors.
JR Ramos
Let me amend something there….21700 was actually developed by Tesla simply for space efficiency and cooling aspects in large car battery banks. The boost in canister size carried the other electric advantages with it.
DONAL RODGERS
I feel that it’s highly probable that 18650 sales cells will go tablets. The main reason why we have not seen them so far is that manufacturers have been focused on the 21700s. Probably for some of the reasons you have mentioned above. One reason I feel this is other than the advantage for the cell itself. Is that going tabless brings the manufacturing cost down. I suppose time will tell.
Stuart
Why do you think tabless 18650 cells would cost less to manufacture?
JR Ramos
Ignoring any initial retooling and process costs, it seems to me that tabless construction should be increasing the cost of these cells. That’s a hunch, though, based on what I know and have seen of the production machinery and processes (it’s pretty neat…a few videos out there if you hunt them down but some of this comes from forum talk and trade mags). But really, it just doesn’t make much sense from a practical standpoint, imho. I don’t think the market is there, either, but that is where these comparatively small time China manufacturers always fill gaps (great examples being the many many abandoned cell sizes which no major manufactures anymore but still have popular use and see current product design). For most things, if the power delivery and capacity are desired, it’s been acceptable to take the slight size increase of 21700 over 18650 and enjoy all the benefits, so that’s mostly what companies have been doing and 18650 sees far less implementation than it did just a handful of years ago. But who knows, maybe someone will give tabless 18650 a shot…we’ve seen far less sensible things happen from small outfits that are hungry for money.
DONAL RODGERS
According to a paper that is on science.com. All tabless cells cost less to manufacture. Apparently it is to do with the coating machine being will be able to work a lot faster. Here is a link to the article /paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X23033406
Stuart
Very interesting read, but it should still be considered speculation until manufacturers release actual cost figures.
The word “assume” appears 30 times in the paper, and “assumption” 11 times.
That cell costs could potentially be lower does not mean they will be lower.
JR Ramos
That was an interesting paper, thanks for sharing that. I see shortcomings but it’s clear that they are very knowledgeable about the process (possibly less so the actual machines and factory concerns, but enough) and were really excellent with their cost modeling and what all they incorporated. Funded by the German government and using cost figures for Euros and German labor/energy costs, but they do allude to the great disparity there vs. costs in Asia…which is monumental, especially when you consider government subsidized energy in China (energy costs are probably much higher than labor costs so that’s like a triple whammy in the analysis).
Interesting to see the speed figures for laying the goop on. I expected the process to be fast but when I saw the first production video I was blown away by just how fast they can do this, and with the precision necessary! I *think* it may have been an LG factory but they kept that under wraps…all of the majors are like a fortress these days when it comes to virtually any behind the scenes information…smaller China outfits are much more open about it, but they also still have a lot of difficulty with the precision and consistency.
So when they arrive at “cheaper” it’s really not something we can take away and say, “yes, it’ll be cheaper.” There is so much to consider and they’re honest about that in the paper. Chiefly, they’re looking at the speed of laying on the goop, and they’re letting some small particulars lay by the wayside, which is fine in the big picture. But they are also modeling “giga” production that is 24/7/365 in Tesla giga-factory style…and those regional economics. They admit near the end that this model works best in countries with higher costs (energy and labor both) like Germany, USA, and Switzerland. To my knowledge none of these companies are manufacturing cells (yet)…but that is the point of this government funded study. The lion’s share is made in China now as Japan has scaled way back (and moved a lot of their production to China) and Korea has moved at least some portion to China (mostly 18650 if I’m not mistaken). So I think in the end, if they’re still made in China/Asia, and for factories that are not Tesla-esque, this cost savings may not come to fruition or it might be a washout. They alluded to a washout in a perfunctory way, comparing the increased goop speed to the additional costs of the laser cutting for tabless (they sort of skim over the tab folding tooling costs, suggesting that it can be incorporated to existing machines without fuss, but who knows if that’s the case or not…would suspect not). But the initial tooling costs are a drop in the bucket if it’s determined that the cost and benefit and future of the manufactured product will be worthy/profitable. Kind of like recouping your R&D costs for a circuit board where it’s covered pretty quickly and converted to higher long term profit (using that approach, which most seem to do).
But we’re still left with the physics here, and potential mechanical aspects. I don’t know if the layers of rolled tab ends reduce the vertical space in the canister but judging by (not great) pics I’ve seen of 21700 and the 46800 (sorry…4680…I’m a traditionalist) it looks like there is some added bulk at that end of the roll. Any reduction in the electrode amount will reduce the capacity and/or power delivery of the cell. 18650 is already pretty limited (for our needs when it comes to high drain products like tools and bikes and such) and maxed out technically for a decade now. Considering a practical current top-out of 2500mAh that is suitable for tools (Samsung 25S), if that “smaller” capacity is able to drain faster and harder for a tool that allows it, the run time is going to plummet a non-insignificant amount. Is that acceptable…if so, for which tools? The fix for that is adding more cells to the pack, which adds weight and some tools may not be able to accommodate it physically. Easier to squeeze in 21700 to a design for minimal added bulk, still get the performance and same or greater capacity/run time. I just am not seeing the benefit of 18650 tabless for power tools…might have potential for bikes and scooters and such but those would benefit a LOT more from 21700 if not a larger platform, which some are doing now I guess.
I didn’t find any of their “assumption” uses to be out of line at all…in fact every one seemed to be backed with very logical and accurate figures based on various aspects. I wouldn’t fault the paper for that one bit. They also called out the caveats succinctly. Good paper altogether even if it doesn’t address the big picture in today-right-now manufacturing.
I’ve seen so many science articles and research about batteries over the years that I just skim over them usually, now. Some get my attention but gosh there is so much that just can’t feasibly work and/or can never make it to scalable production in any way that society wants or needs. It’s great that so much energy is being put into this research, though…I mean look where we are today with dry storage, it’s amazing. Li-ion peaked enough years ago that now we are seeing incremental tweaks and other than some new experimentation with anode and cathode materials (none of which are good for high drain use) it’s just been increasing the size and perfecting processes (and a tiny bit of chemistry).
Oh…sorry, this is a book…speaking of dry. They mentioned in the paper about Tesla’s introduction of a “dry” goop process…and they referenced 2022. That has kind of been a flop for Tesla but just the other day I saw an article that they seem to have made it work finally and put the cells into a new cyber truck. If so, that’ll be a significant cost savings for them…maybe them only, within their own factories.