Still in stock for me here in Sydney the AA’s are at $15 a pack. I bought a bunch of Coles branded NiMH on clearance not to long ago They are okay so far.
only cells more durable than Eneloop Pro / IKEA LADDA I know of are 2100 cycle 1900mAh japanese Eneloops but it’s the exact same technology, just less capacity.
Btw, Varta Endless = Chinese Eneloops
Those have a track record of dying way earlier than panasonic claims.
Part of the reason japanese eneloops can do 2100 cycles is very, very pure metals for the aloys of the electrodes which I guess the chinese factory is probably penny-pinching on.
This NiMH Handbook by GP goes a bit in-depth on the chemistry of standard NiMH batteries, FDKs low self discharge tech is even more advanced.
For all we know they are simply replacing the label with a more colourful one.
That said perhaps they are changing supliers or getting out of the battery business. We just don’t know.
Seems Amazon Basics and Duracell stopped using the Japanese cells and switched to the Chinese ones since they are probably much cheaper. Of course they sell them for the same price as the old ones. Ikea is probably doing the same. From their point of view making more money trumps selling a better product.
I posted this 1 day 14 hours ago.
17 hours ago, less than a day after i posted, the AA Laddas went out of stock online but there were 28 packs available at my local store.
Just checked and those packs have goooooone.
Looks like Oz internet was simply reporting from it’s advanced time zone