I was thinking the same thing about batteries.

A Milwaukee dealer had a nice booth at the Louisville Show. He told me that the new Li batteries WILL work on the older NiCad tools, you just need a different charger.

The new charger is in a kit with a Li battery and the new charger WILL charge the older NiCad batteries but the old chargers will not charge the new batteries.

I have to applaud Milwaukee tools for thinking of their customers and making the new batteries backwards-compatible. Buying battery tools is sort of like getting married to a battery system.

I bought a couple and the new Li batteries and they make the old tools even better.

Now if I could just keep our shop guys from "borrowing" my Milwaukee 18V impact out of my truck...

Jim at Dawn