There has been some speculation as to whether or not the new Ryobi 18V 6.0 ah batteries use 20700 or larger cells so I brought the question up to Ryobi themselves through my Official Ryobi contact and he confirmed they are still using the 18650 cells on the latest 6.0 ah HP batteries sold here in the USA.
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I think 18650 was always the assumption, that would be a lot larger than the old 4.0 battery if it was 20700. It would overhang its base and actually probably wouldn’t fit inside a lot of tools if it was bigger.
FAIL!
Why? Wouldn’t a 6.0 battery that’s the physically the same size as the 4.0 be better than a 6.0 battery that’s bigger than the 4.0?
A 6ah pack using 20-70 cells would be maybe 10mm bigger but the real difference is that the 20-70 cells are vastly superior to the best 18650s. However, the 21-70s that Tesla, Bosch ProCore and Metabo are using are even better.
Generally speaking, battery cells come in 3 varieties. High energy density with low discharge ratings, Low energy density with high discharge ratings and cheap junk cells that are neither high discharge or high energy density.
You can google the data sheets for these cells and compare their specifications.
I would agree to disagree, the 20700 cells are not nearly as readily available and the cost of the cells are higher than the 18650s, so that would throw a wrench into the affordability of the ryobi product line, so I can see this being true. I have seen several photos , one of a circular saw with the 6.0 battery, and it appears to be larger than the 4.0, which would lead me to believe it has the larger cells, but I guess it could be more circuitry for the “HP” part of the battery.