New Hilti Nuron Batteries are a Big Deal

Hilti launched 2 new Nuron 22V cordless power tool batteries, and from all the advertised features it looks like they finally got their hands on tabless Li-ion battery cells.

Hilti doesn’t say these Nuron batteries have tabless cells, which is the latest high performance cylindrical Li-ion cell technology, but we know of no other path towards delivering the claims they’re making.

There are two new Hilti Nuron batteries:

• B 22-195 (9Ah)
• B 22-290 (13.5Ah)

Although Hilti has lagged behind numerous competitors in introducing tabless cells – Bosch, Dewalt, Milwaukee, Makita, and even Ryobi beat them to market – it is notable that they seem to be using 4.5Ah battery cells.

This would explain how the 6S2P battery, B 22-195, has 9Ah capacity, and the 6S3P battery, B 22-290, is rated with a 13.5Ah capacity.

I don’t believe any other brand currently offers “2P” or “3P” battery packs with such charge capacities, pushing Hilti ahead. Sometimes it pays to sit back and wait for a little.

In addition to delivering higher power and of course longer runtime, the new batteries are said to operate at a lower running temperature.

Hilti also says they charge up to 50% faster, although they don’t explain whether this is with existing or new chargers.

The new Hilti B 22-195 (9Ah) looks to be the same size as the 12-cell B 22-170 battery (8Ah).

The B 22-290 (13.5Ah) looks to be the same size as the 18-cell B 22-255 (12Ah).

It is not clear whether Hilti did anything besides populate existing battery packs with new higher capacity cells.

For example, when Milwaukee introduced M18 FORGE batteries with tabless Li-ion cells, they described the numerous and significant improvements they made to the entire package, such as in cooling and durability. Milwaukee didn’t just take the newest battery cells available from their supplier and pop them into the same battery pack.

The new batteries look identical from the product images, aside from the new model numbers (and approximate watt-hour ratings) molded into the sides.

Hilti says these new batteries deliver “higher power,” but has not yet quantified this claim. When Bosch and Makita launched higher performance batteries, they detailed specific improvements to application speed or power that users can expect to see from different tool and battery pairings.

The new batteries launched in Europe and Asia earlier this year. USA availability has not yet been announced, but we expect the batteries to launch here soon.

Aside from all the questions I have for Hilti, here’s the big one: when are other brands going to move to 4.5Ah cells? It’s good to see Hilti taking the lead.