BATTERY EVOLUTION

We know that Milwaukee Tool uses some tabless cells too.“ Tabless cells have unlocked substantial benefits, including enhanced power delivery, reduced heat generation, faster charging and extended battery life,” said Farooque, of Milwaukee Tool.“ This innovation has empowered us to continue pushing the boundaries of performance across our systems.” He added that tabless cylindrical cells also help Milwaukee integrate its cooling system using charger-mounted fans to pass air through ventilation channels in the battery and directly cool the core.

What’ s left in this story?

Motors The integration of brushless motors, which are inherently more energy-efficient and provide greater torque per watt, might be the more important part of the story.

“ The part that has really helped create the conversion is batteries working with brushless motors. And the efficiencies that come with those designs. With a brushless motor,” said Zimmerman from Kress,“ you have the opportunity to actually create software for that brushless motor to do different things at different levels.”

We’ ll save motors for another time, a lot to discuss there.

Cost The cost of lithium-ion batteries is influenced heavily by raw material markets on the supply side and EV interest on the demand side. OPE manufacturers benefit from the technological advancements and cost efficiencies achieved in the EV sector, effectively leveraging the innovation and scale of a larger industry. At the same time, the battery cell needs of power equipment market are comparatively small, leaving equipment OEMs with relatively little purchasing power.

“ Up to 2020, prices for lithium batteries kept coming down,” said Conrad from Mean Green,“ until Covid, then prices went right back up. Now the hot one is tariffs, and that’ s the challenge now. We were seeing pricing come back down about a year ago, maybe to where it was in 2019. NMC chemistry has been pretty stable overall.”

Battery Management Equipment batteries incorporate intelligent Battery Management Systems( BMS) that continuously monitor and optimize individual battery cells for individual tools.“ Our battery management interacts with the tools

As I was searching for more sources for this story, I found Travis Cournoyer. He’ s a PhD battery designer with experience working for Tesla and Rivian and others. He helped me see batteries from beyond the equipment.

On battery chemistry:“ If you look at all the chemistries, LFP is not terribly exciting. It doesn’ t deliver a lot of power. You can’ t charge it quickly and it’ s not that energy dense. A lot of the nickel chemistries have lots of energy in a small package. And LFP has a specific downside that makes it unique from all the other lithiumion batteries – that’ s its voltage curve. When it’ s almost charged, it’ s very steep. It goes up very high, but then in most of its use from 70 % or 80 % state of charge down to like 20, it’ s flat. That changes your entire architecture of your product. So committing to LFP is a big commitment that you’ re not sharing the development of that product with any other chemistries out there. It’ s low cost, but also high risk if it doesn’ t work out.”

“ Any nickel-loaded chemistry has lots of energy and you can dispense at a typically high power. You can charge it and discharge it very fast. Nickel-loaded chemistries have the highest energy density you can get in a reasonable performance that matches most of the need, which is why it penetrated so deeply across markets. It’ s not inexpensive, but its value-to-cost ratio is the best in the lithiumion world today.”

While Cournoyer shared a lot of knowledge around cost per megawatt and the future of smart batteries, his best advice was more down to earth when considering getting top performance and life out of a battery.

“ I say batteries are like people, right? You don’ t want them too full. You don’ t want to deplete them too much. You want them to be happy, you know, kind of in the middle. Lithium-ion batteries respond well to temperatures that are almost identical to the human body. Not too cold, not too hot. Do that and don’ t overwork it. If you try to get too much power out of it, just like if we work too hard, the battery sweats and gets stressed inside. Its electrodes start to crack, quite literally. So in a lot of ways, batteries are like people.”

“ But professionals don’ t want a battery they have to baby, right? So they throw them around and drop them and that hurts. Then they have to replace them every couple years.”

Travis Cournoyer, PhD, is an engineer and author with over a decade of experience designing, building, and testing advanced battery systems for electric cars, trucks, vans, and airplanes.

www. OPE-Plus. com September 2025 OPE + 19