At DeWALT’s annual Yellow Fusion event, they have unveiled a new 18V slide on Li-Ion battery system. For all of you guys already out there with their 18V system, they will not be dumping the current 18V Li-Ion and Ni-Cad XRP system. This is a very smart move for DeWALT in my opinion. Their current system was great as a stepping stone from their old XRP Ni-Cad system to Li-Ion and allowed customer to get all of the benefits of Li-Ion without having to replace the tools like other manufacturers have done. The down side to this is that their old pod style batteries suffered from contact problems due to the small size of the terminals they used. Going to a slide-style battery will fix this problem and provide even better ergonomics not available with a pod-style battery.

Also something to note, you will be able to charge DeWALT’s 12V-Max batteries on the new 18V slide style charger, something that is super handy for contracting outfits with several trades on site.