Panasonic Discontinues Famous NCR18650B Li-ion Battery
If you're anything like me, you were recently browsing the internet trying to buy some NCR18650B batteries. After a short while, you slowly came to the grim realization that this battery, which was once $3, is out of stock everywhere and/or triple the price.
What the hell is going on?
Well, in an announcement that only recently surfaced, Panasonic has decided to discontinue the world famous NCR18650B battery. While this information wasn't necessarily private, the announcement, made in September of last year (2023), was only seemingly disclosed to direct customers of Panasonic.
This means that retailers, resellers, consumers, and even some supply chain purchasers had no easy way of coming across this information.
According to the document, the deadline for final delivery is September 30th, 2024, which probably explains why prices for this particular battery have increased so sharply. If Panasonic is to believed, 10 days from now, there will never be another delivery of the NCR18650B battery cell again.
Needless to say, this is a rather bizarre turn of events considering the widespread popularity of the NCR18650B. It is arguably the most widely trusted and widely used lithium-ion battery cell ever produced. How could they discontinue what is essentially the bread and butter of the lithium-ion battery world?
The company cites waning demand for "other models that are being produced in parallel on the same production line". Exactly how or why this would impact production for the NCR18650B is somewhat unclear to me.
What makes the situation even more confusing is that production for other battery cells, many of which are more complex, will continue. I am by no means an expert in lithium-ion battery cell production, but how could it possibly make sense to continue production for the NCR18650GA but not for the NCR18650B?
Fortunately, a wide variety of reliable alternatives can quite easily be found. In the document, Panasonic officially proposes the NCR18650BF, a very similar battery, as an alternative model.