News: the new IKEA loops are now 1900mAh, just like the eneloops, and still from Japan.
Specs show s 1000 cycle count, so that might be the cheapest Eneloop 1900mAh version, just like the Fujitsu Blue
03-2019
Just received an email from an Eneloop101 reader (Stefan) from Slovakia telling me that his newly bought brown Ikea Ladda weren't not made in Japan but made in China.
I'm not sure whether this is just for a certain region.
But just so everyone is warned and not suggest noobs to buy IKEAloops without warning ;)
I will soon be updating the info on eneloop101.com as well!
OP shows pictures of the two packages side-by-side. One package is from Japan, and one package is from China, and the cells inside have the same labeling. Are you suggesting that they’ve been lying about the country of origin and just now telling the truth?
Ok I completely missed that.
At my Ikea (in Canada) the brown Ladda AAs have had the made in China label for the last few years. I dont know if they were Japan before that.
The white 2450mah are still labeled made in Japan.
No. A few years ago over on CPF there was some long-duration cycle tests done on Chinese vs. Japanese Eneloops. They started out very similar, but the Chinese ones only got a little over half the number of cycles as the Japanese ones.
Basically, Chinese Eneloops are okay, but they’re nowhere near the same quality as the Japanese ones. If you only use them for a couple of years and throw them out, you probably wouldn’t notice any difference. Otherwise, go for the real Japanese ones.
Thank you for this info :+1: . Wow, I hope Panasonic is aware of this as well. I’m certainly not against made in China, but I do prefer companies like Panasonic/Sanyo not to outsource to foreign countries.
IKEA’s supplier contracts regularly come up for review, with an eye on lowering costs, if not squeezing (even long time) suppliers. The price drops touted with each new catalog have to come from somewhere.
A Billy bookcase or a set of Helmer drawers, to name two long-serving products, are not the same items they are today as they were ten, or even five years ago. Externally, they make look mostly similar, but the designs have changed, likely along with the supplier as well.
The BBC did a series on the company, and among the stories documented was how a long time supplier lost one product contract to a cheaper competitor, and the fight to replace that business with a different product and preserve the multi-generational family business and the jobs of its employees.
That’s the way business runs, and it’s not unique to IKEA.
‘Eneloop’ is now just a trade name owned by Panasonic and nothing more. Panasonic has marketed NiMH batteries sourced from their factory(ies) in China using ‘Eneloop,’ mostly for the Asian and Oceania markets.
I checked Ikea.ca but the description doesn’t indicate the country of origin. The first time I bought Ladda batteries was probably about 2-3 years ago. At that time the brown AAs were definitely marked made in China.
He will bring them back, and sent me 1 package. He will also check whether the white AA's are still the ones Made in Japan.
That could definitely be the case in certain countries, at least it's not a positive sign when the move away from the Japan made ones to the China made ones.