Milwaukee’s New MX Fuel Line Is 72V (80V Max) But Voltage Alone Doesn’t Tell The Whole Story

When Milwaukee announced their new MX Fuel cordless line of light equipment, the whole industry was shocked (in a good way)! While most power tool manufacturers disclose their cordless power tool operating voltage, Milwaukee chose not to disclose the voltage of their new MX Fuel system. I knew it was a new high voltage line because these cordless power tools are more powerful than what competing brands have in their high voltage lines and also because the new MX Fuel batteries are massive. There’s no way they could be running 18 volts like their M18 system. So I contacted Milwaukee and they confirmed the new MX Fuel system is indeed a high voltage cordless power tool or should I say, equipment line. Milwaukee mentioned their new system is actually 72 volts or otherwise known as 80V Max. Below is what they had to say.

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The construction industry has traditionally used voltage and amp-hours to communicate the power and capability of cordless power tool platforms. Technically, MX FUEL™ runs at 72V Nominal (80V Peak), with the CP Pack at 3Ah and the XC pack at 6Ah. However, voltage and amp-hours do not tell the full story.

For example, most would agree that a fork lift has more “power” than a hand-held power tool, but what many people do not realize is that most battery-powered forklifts/lift trucks operate at 48V while there are some handheld power tools at much higher voltages. More importantly, MX FUEL™ was developed from the ground up to withstand the most challenging applications and environments that equipment is subjected to on-site.

It appears they don’t want their system labeled as 72V since it doesn’t tell the whole story. This is because they bring up a good point as they mention a battery powered forklift runs at 48V and we all know it’s much more powerful than any cordless power tool on the market today running at 60V or even at 120V.

I wonder if this hints at a new MX Fuel forklift sometime down the road? Hey, with today’s fast advancing tech, anything’s possible. What do you guys think, which new cordless equipment would you like to be part of Milwaukee’s latest MX Fuel cordless power tool/equipment line?


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5 Comments

  • Art says:

    Yeah the unit of power is watts, which is volts * amps. The spec that is never mentioned is how much instantaneous current a battery can supply. Amp hours is the total charge a battery can supply over the discharge cycle but not the amount of current it can deliver at any moment. A spec similar to this for car batteries is ‘cranking amps’. For any battery as amount of current supplied increases so does the heat generated from the battery’s internal resistance. The forklift 48v batteries have humongous cables attached that carry a lot of amps. Lot of amps * 48V is lot of power even though it’s 48V.

    A practical reason for going to higher voltages in hand tools is less weight because copper and components are typically heavier with more current. The trade-off is assembling batteries with lots of cells to get the higher voltages.

  • Conor says:

    I would love to see a chainsaw, maybe an 18 inch, introduced to the new MX Fuel line. I have an M18 16 inch chainsaw and it is nice but there are limitations to an 18V system. I recently purchased some cheap no-name 120V battery saw made by Redback. I didn’t have high hopes for this $99 chainsaw but it has actually impressed me. The advantage of higher voltages really shined when I ran the saw under sustained heavy loads by cutting up a tree trunk the diameter of the bar length. It ran until the battery drained and didn’t even get warm.
    The M18 saw would have cut out after a while due to thermal overload because the higher amp draw. The Milwaukee saw is overall a better made unit but I have to saw there are some good things about the cheapo due to the higher voltage. I suspect Milwaukee would outdo the cheaper 120V with this new 72/80V max system.

  • Kevin says:

    New Hand held MX Impact

    • Z4R0S says:

      What’d you do with such a monster?
      Power up a rocket or make the planet spin faster in space? A year would become a week…

  • Buddy Forest says:

    Id lo e to see a powersaw as well a mini scissor lift

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