We've had universal adapters for ages. You can run a DeWalt battery on a Milwaukee, Makita on DeWalt, etc. I even have an adapter to run my Milwaukee M18 batteries on my Dyson vacuum. You can run a wire to the pos/neg leads on the battery and use it standalone. I use it to power temporary reverse off-road lights on my truck. I see no reason to do this sort of thing. More oppressive regulation from the EU that no one actually wants. Fortunately Milwaukee is a US company as well as a dominant player in the market and will likely not participate in this whatsoever.

Milwaukee was a US company but has been a brand of Techtronic Industries, which is based in Hong Kong, for about 20 years now.

You have to be careful with the adapters because some brands have the circuitry that stops you running the battery too low in the tool and some in the battery. If you end up with a combo where that circuitry doesn’t exist you can over-deplete the battery.

Also: I want that regulation :)

Agree. The toolmakers don't impose some sort of coding (that I know of) so you can just use a 3rd party replacement battery too. I don't see a need to regulate this either.